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rALK 


BY 

EMANIE N.ISACHS) 



NEW YORK 

HARPER & BROTHERS 

MDCCCCXXIV 





TALK 

Copyright, 1924, 

By Harper & Brothers 
Printed in the U. S. A. 

First Edition 

G-Y 


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TO MY HUSBAND 





Contents 


Book One. The Store I 

Book Two. The Little Gray Cottage 89 

Book Three. HlGHVIEW 161 

Book Four. The House 207 












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Book One 

The Store 


> 




TALK 


Everybody in Merville was worried about Delia Morehouse. 
Everybody said, “Now what’s going to happen to that poor 
child?” For, according to Kentucky custom in 1899, she should 
have found a home with her nearest male kin, and Delia had 
none, not even a cousin’s aunt’s husband. 

At another time, counting on her girlish innocence, the elders 
of the town might have juggled her affairs so as to pull a gilded 
rabbit out of an empty hat. But such con jury would strain 
them financially after the panic of ’93, and Merville was espec¬ 
ially shaken by the crash of the Morehouse Bank. Delia’s father 
had languidly undermined that institution which her grandfather 
had founded so firmly that the people loyally imagined a con¬ 
spiracy to explain its failure, a conspiracy that during the first 
shock they resented more than the loss of their own fortunes. 

When investigation proved Roland Morehouse’s carelessness 
to be the cause, he promptly got pneumonia, with his usual tact. 
He was spared the effort of defending his mistakes and the 
further effort of supporting Delia, by that which the Merville 
News called the Grim Reaper. His charming wife had died a 
few months before. 

Good society was compact and patriarchal; it assumed a re¬ 
sponsibility for its daughters; it was concerned about Delia’s 
plight, though at the Livery Stable, where the tone of talk was 

3 


4 


TALK 


always pitched, nobody could think beyond, “Now, what’s going 
to happen to that poor child?” 

At Trenton’s livery stable any wife could locate any husband 
at any time of the day. It was on the Public Square. And the 
boarded slope which crossed the sidewalk for the horses’ footway 
was flanked in fine weather by chairs, tilted for the ease of the 
horses’ present, past or future owners, and commentators thereof. 
Hereabouts men coined political shibboleths; here was William 
Goebel adored or detested; and here was the note of local gossip. 
Here they discussed the undressed flesh Eudora Dexter’s princess 
dress had failed to cover at the last Fair Hop and how Faltha 
Reeves had told the ladies that it would be better if she exhibited 
better biscuits and less bosom at her parties, but Page Reeves 
was rushing Eudora and his mother wanted an heiress for him. 
Here they wondered where the Humphreys got the money to 
follow the latest fads and who paid for the Railroad party they 
gave for Charlie May, with the parlor made to look like a coach 
and the dining room like a lunch counter. Here they chuckled 
over Les Henderson’s remark to Mrs. Reeves. He was visiting 
the Humphrey farm and she drove out to ask the major’s advice 
about buying a cow. “Major’s down with the hogs,” he said. 
“You can tell him. He’s got a hat on.” 

Les, with the other boys, loafed at Mayfield’s Corner Drug 
Store, amid patent-medicine advertisements, faintly saccharine 
and heartily obscene. A bicycle rack stood on the pavement. 
Next door, Billy Bassett’s saloon was strictly utilitarian because 
feet could be recognized beneath its mirrored swinging doors. 

And in other stores around the square the ladies gossiped as 
they lingered over purchases of thread or spinach or bonnets. 
Even the stone nymph which presided over the little green park 



TALK 


S 


in the center was never still. It gurgled a clear, chameleon 
stream into the fountain, a lovely stream which took color from 
the atmosphere. 

All this, topographically, was in a basin and three residential 
hills sprayed from it. The fourth street sagged, flattened where 
it crossed the Kentucky and Tennessee Railroad tracks, and 
slumped into the deep waters of Pherson River. Thus the Public 
Square was like a caldron from which earth and stone and water 
literally overflowed. It seethed with the stir of politics against 
grandiloquence and wit, and it rang with the clash of manners 
and customs against individual desires. 

4 

It was late afternoon in late autumn. 

In the livery stable, Nero the billy goat wandered aimlessly, 
dignified of beard, dainty of hoof, and pungent of smell. Though 
dampness had driven a flock of flies into his domain, satiated, he 
eyed them languidly. One-eyed Jake Jenkins curried a country 
mule, assuring it “ ’at everybody ’at talked ’bout heav’n wam’t 
going theah.” And guffaws came from the stable office where 
the elders of the town were gathered. 

The office was dim with pipe smoke and an acrid mixture of 
steam. Steam rose from a pile of horse blankets on the floor 
and from a kettle on the stove, supposed to moisten the air. 
It was a fat little monkey stove with a red-hot bulging belly 
which went s-puzzz-sizzle when an aim at the spittoon landed 
on it. 



6 


TALK 


Mr. Roger Gale, president of the Merville National Bank, 
opened the door. 

“Come in,” said Pilch Trenton. “Take a chair, sir; take 
two chairs.” Pilch Trenton was chief among town wits. Some 
held that he ran a livery stable to supply himself with auditors. 

“I’m leaving,” said Squire Preston. “My grandfather got a 
licking for saying that to his grandfather. It was so old then. 
Anyway, Pilch, I don’t believe that fish story you’ve just told 
and I don’t believe the one you’re about to tell.” 

The company roared their appreciation. They always did. 

The squire knocked the tobacco out of his corn-cob pipe. 
His round face had the look of a solemn baby as it turned to 
Mr. Gale. “Did you find anything?” he asked. 

“Nope. It’s worse than we thought. Not a red cent left,” 
said Mr. Gale. 

Major Humphrey stared at them. He had a large expressive 
nose which twitched now with curiosity. He used his infallible 
method to satisfy it. 

“Too bad,” he said, for if you pretended*to know a thing you 
usually found it out. 

Mr. Gale smiled. “It’s no secret,” he said, “about poor Delia 
Morehouse. The only thing left is Webster’s Bookstore, and 
that’s more of a liability than an asset, eating up taxes. She 
couldn’t pay anybody to run it for her. It’s been closed for five 
years. I don’t know what’s going to become of her. I don’t 
envy you, Squire, having to tell her.” 

“Any more kindling in that bottle, Pilch?” asked the squire, 
gloomily. 

The bottle was passed around. 

“We never know where misfortune will strike.” By way of 



TALK 


7 


averting it from himself, Major Humphrey tapped one hand on 
the wooden baseboard and then rubbed the rabbit’s foot which 
he carried in his pocket. That rabbit had been killed by a black 
cat at midnight on the grave of the first white child born in 
Kentucky. “Well, Delia’s a sweet, pretty girl. I reckon there’ll 
be some orange blossoms growing over Delia’s mourning weeds, 
soon. He’d have to be well off, though. My Charlie May 
says she ain’t any better housekeeper than her poor sainted 
mother was.” 

“Is there any special young man on the scene now?” asked 
Mr. Gale. 

“I haven’t heard of one,” said the major. “I think she has 
her programs filled at dances, she ain’t a wallflower, but she 
ain’t carrying off any palms, either. She hasn’t much dash; 
just one of these nice girls that ’ll make a fine wife and mother.” 

“Lucky she wasn’t a boy,” mused Pilch Trenton. “She might 
have taken after her father in a business way. That damned 
Republican Royall from Louisville claimed the bank must have 
been insolvent for months. It looked like a shooting scrape was 
coming off in the courtroom, when the judge overruled Will 
Fletcher, and Willy said, ‘Judge, just leave it to the crowd.’ ” 

“Royall’d have a hell of a job indicting a Morehouse in Pher- 
son County,” said the major. “And now little Delia, the last 
one, alone in the world. It’s like a play.” The major rubbed 
his nose, relishing the picture of a lone and pretty female. 

“Well, I’ve got a hell of a job ahead of me, telling her about 
it,” whimpered Squire Preston, “and you tell any lawyer in this 
town that the next man that makes me his executor when he 
ain’t leaving nothing to be executed but me . . .” He growled 
inarticulately as he slammed the door behind him. 



8 


TALK 


4 

Delia Morehouse huddled in a Morris chair near the Frank¬ 
lin stove in the parlor. The stove was chillier than the air, but 
Delia couldn’t make a fire burn. 

And Aunt Mandy, who used to work for the Morehouses, had 
returned to her washing in Shak Rag. The neighbors also 
had gone home. They had flocked to console Delia when her 
father died so pitifully and romantically soon after her mother. 
Delia, being a girl, could make herself comfortable until the men 
settled what she was to do. Though everybody knew that com¬ 
fort was a gift which neither she nor her mother had possessed, 
at such a sad time nobody would say so. 

Delia, inert, unseeing, watched the purple dusk mingle with 
purple wisps of smoke from bonfires along the street. Children 
were burning fallen leaves. When she heard them shouting she 
frowned slightly, in wonder, not in irritation. At her stage of 
grief she wondered how anyone could be happy; she wondered 
that other people seemed to be going on as before. 

Her hands were clasped loosely in her lap. She pressed them 
convulsively. She had felt and thought so much that she had 
stopped doing either. 

The onyx clock on the mantel had no pendulum; there wasn’t 
a timepiece in the house to remind her of supper. And Delia only 
ate when she was hungry and she didn’t care what she ate. No¬ 
body was there to see or comment. And ever since she had tried 
to boil a chicken without removing its insides, she simply fried 
a slice of ham and made some cocoa when she needed food. 

It was getting dark, but the cottage which the Morehouses had 




TALK 


9 


rented after the failure was not equipped with gas, much less elec¬ 
tricity. And Delia hadn’t cleaned the lamps. There was some¬ 
thing mysterious about wicks which she and her mother had not 
been able to fathom. 

Mrs. Morehouse had been deficient in all domestic arts save 
charm; and that, until the bank failed, had sufficed. She used to 
tell Delia that if you didn’t know how to cook or clean, a man 
would always get some one to do it for you, and that the more 
you demanded the more you got. 

Now the hair-cloth-and-mahogany furniture was covered with 
a mauve veil of dust. Delia had flicked at it with a feather 
duster which made it rise and fall back again. From the kitchen 
which adjoined the parlor came a faint charred smell. The 
cocoa wouldn’t scrape off the pan. 

Because Delia despised household tasks, she couldn’t do them. 
And her mother had told her they weren’t worth while. So when 
Delia attempted them, her fingers, being resentful, were clumsy. 

Her body was not clumsy. It was incased and corseted in 
the hour-glass mold of the period, which suited her. Her silvery 
blond hair, wavy when it was brushed, was suited to the Gibson 
pompadour. Her skin was deep cream, almost dark, and without 
color. She had wide apart, slanting, broody blue eyes. 

They fixed now on a rent in the lace curtain, through which 
they watched Squire Preston drive his buggy close to the curb¬ 
stone. He propped a large rock against each rear wheel. 

He had pulled down the lever of the front-door bell before Delia 
realized that he was coming to see her and that he would see 
her with her hair disheveled. She wore an old black dress that 
had been her mother’s. It didn’t fit and its huge bell sleeves 
were out of style. 



IO 


TALK 


She was too spent with tears and fatigue and bewilderment to 
care. She didn’t know what to say or how to act. Why did 
people come and stare at you when you were grieving and make 
you go all over it again? They came to watch you suffer, and 
if you didn’t suffer right before their eyes they talked about you 
and called you hard-hearted. Well, she had cried so much, she 
had no tears left. And then her eyes and throat filled with them. 

She greeted Squire Preston wordlessly as she huddled back into 
her chair and drearily blew her nose. She hoped the squire 
wouldn’t notice that she didn’t have a black-bordered hand¬ 
kerchief. 

The squire took off the wide cape he wore, shivered and put 
it on again. He “There-there-ed.” He deplored the early winter 
and its effects on the crops. He spoke of the Goebel election 
law, of the election contest, and said that if the Republican party 
had been rotten in that fraudulent election, those traitor Demo¬ 
crats who joined with them against Goebel had been putrid. He 
apologized for such strong language. And with the aid of a few 
inappropriate quotations from Wordsworth he told her what 
everyone else in Merville knew. 

It was unreal and it wasn’t nice. To be orphaned and penniless 
was like a novel, or a story in a yellow journal. Nor was it 
nice to talk about money. But there was nobody to find things 
out for her and then “arrange.” She used to think that dis¬ 
agreeable things were always “arranged.” 

“I haven’t anything?” she asked. 

“Nothing but Webster’s Bookstore, sole real property of your 
lovely mother, decea—er—umph. I don’t know a soul who could 
undertake to run it for you, Delia.” 

She had said one obvious thing, and now she said another. 



TALK 


n 


“Why shouldn’t I run it myself?” 

“You! Don’t be ridiculous,” he snorted, brutally. 

Pathetic and young and alone, clinging to that Morris chair, 
she, with those quaint huge sleeves, looked to him like some for¬ 
gotten remnant for which there was neither use nor place. He 
stopped being brutal and laughed at her tenderly. 

“Why, honey, you couldn’t do that! Well-born ladies stay in 
their homes. You couldn’t expose yourself to insults. It’s not to 
be thought of. You’re not one of these new women; we don’t 
have ’em in Kentucky. Our ladies had rather have new bonnets 
than new ballots, bless their sweet hearts. Why, you were 
brought up to balance a sunshade and gladden the hearts of all 
the young men until you choose one of them to be your mate 
and settle down to the blissful duties of your own home.” 

A pale moon had risen. As it crept across the sky it seemed 
to pause outside the window, and through the bared tree branches, 
to point a jagged shaft of light at the mauve veil on all the 
furniture. It was cruel to that bleak room. It made you see 
that comfort had not perished temporarily there; it had never 
existed. The four chairs, the table, the sofa, each stood apart, 
separate. No homing gift had pulled that room together. 

The squire was puzzled. He was a contented old bachelor at 
forty. There was no woman in his quarters over Mayfield’s drug 
store, but there was warmth and comfort in them. 

For Delia things began to swing into focus as they had done 
after chloroform when she had her appendix removed. That 
was when they were the Morehouses, doing the latest things, even 
to having appendicitis. Her father had teased her about being 
in style ... her darling father. ... No, she must stop feeling 
new, she must think. 



12 


TALK 


She had never been forced to think things out for herself. 
She had dozed through a calm girlhood, dreaming inarticulate 
dreams, seeing herself in pictures which had not developed. 
Delia as the belle of the ball had been spoiled because she didn’t 
dance well, she mixed her german figures. Delia as the solace of 
her stricken home had been spoiled because she could neither 
cook nor clean. She had never fitted into any picture. Now she 
imagined a Delia in crisp attire, running a small store, the 
heroine of the community! 

“What else is there for me to do?” she asked. 

“Damned if I know! I beg your pardon, Delia. But ladies 
don’t run stores. It’s not to be thought of. I don’t see how you 
ever thought of it. What would happen if a mouse ran across 
the floor?” 

The squire watched her through the dusky room. She lifted 
her head spiritedly from the cushion. The squire decided that 
he was unfair to her. Of course ladies didn’t run stores, but she 
had been nervy to suggest it. Actually, what was there for her 
to do? Some one might be persuaded to give her a home. She 
could help out with the housework and do a little sewing. . . . 
But her mother’s domestic shortcomings and the fact that Delia 
had inherited them were bywords in Merville. Suppose she did 
open that little store? She’d be off his hands while she tried it. 
He didn’t know what to do with her! She was sweet and pretty 
and all the young men would find her pitiful and appealing behind 
a counter. Otherwise, in mourning, she’d be apart from the 
town, she wouldn’t see any young men. Squire Preston suddenly 
understood how far-fetched must be the schemes of a managing 
mamma. 



TALK 


i3 


“People would think it was funny. They might talk about it. 
I wonder if they’d act right?” he said, dubiously. 

Delia shrank back into her chair. Her new and alluring picture 
of herself would be spoiled if she were the talk and not the 
heroine of the community. 

“You reckon they would talk about it?” she quavered. 

It struck him as delightfully feminine that she, who had not 
quailed at going out in the world or at the amazing thought of 
going into business, did quail at the thought of people talking 
about it. And as she quailed he naturally became more convinced 
that it was the only thing for her to do. It was a personal relief 
to him; he had a shrewd presentiment that others, feeling vaguely 
responsible for her, would find any disposal a relief. 

“Don’t you bother about that, honey. Your family has meant 
too much to this town for the town not to be a help in your 
trouble. Nobody can figure out what you can do, and I’ll 
promise you that I’ll make them understand.” 

“Are you sure you can? I wouldn’t want anybody to think 
that I was . . . trying . . . er . . . being . . . horrid.” Her 
blue eyes grayed, dimmed. She blew her rather tiptilted nose 
again. 

“Don’t you bother your little head one second; just leave all 
that to me, child. And, Delia, I’m proud of you! When I think 
of you, a tender young girl, willing to go out into the rough 
world. A noble Kentucky gentlewoman.” Squire Preston, 
affected by his own oratory, wiped his eyes. “Now I reckon you’d 
better move over to Mollie Henderson’s to live. Of course her 
way of meeting misfortune is mighty ladylike, honey, supplying 
a home to those without family circles and cooks ... I reckon 
you couldn’t take paying guests, you being unmarried.” 



14 


TALK 


Delia laughed gently. “Now, Squire, no guest of mine would 
pay anything. I couldn’t keep house, if I had one to keep. 
Aunt Mandy says I can’t help it; I was bawn that way. Now, 
you’re sure nobody’ll say. . . .” 

“Sure! Positive. I’ll tell Bob Fletcher he can rent this 
cottage again. And I’ll help you; no, I’ll send Page Reeves to 
help you get started downtown. He’s been reading law in my 
office. He’s an elegant young fellow. . . . Um! . . . Bless the 
good Lord who alway provides,” he added, cryptically. 

Since the good Lord had provided to wit, a pretty young lady 
in distress, and to wit, an elegant young fellow, the squire would 
provide propinquity. For this amazing venture of Delia’s must 
be brief. A woman of her social consequence might take in 
paying guests, she might take in sewing secretly, she might, if 
necessary, teach, but she might not work in a store. Delia’s was 
an unusual case. She had no living relations, she was not 
equipped to do any of the possible things. She had to attempt 
the impossible. And a few words would explain that it was a 
temporary measure, a few words would put it in the light of a 
church fair. 

“Everybody’s going to appreciate what you’re about to do,” 
he promised, “to buffet the billows of adversity with your own 
sweet self; your troubles are like lingering winter in the lap of 
spring, you must . . . uk . . . uk . . .” Squire Preston’s 
voice died in his throat. His own oratory inevitably affected his 
feelings. Its depth had ruined his political career. 

Delia glowed from his praise, which was new and sweet. She 
felt that he would “arrange,” that there would be nothing dis¬ 
agreeable said about what she was going to do. She shouldn’t 
feel happy now; she missed her father and mother . . . horribly. 



TALK 


IS 

She dared not let herself realize that she was utterly alone, that 
they were gone, just gone. She dared not let herself think of her 
father as he had looked beneath the glass coffin top, right in 
that very room. So small and queer and waxen he had looked, 
like a doll. She wanted to remember him as he was, dear and 
warm and alive, but they had said she must look at him, that he 
looked so natural. And she had been afraid that if she didn’t 
they would think she didn’t care. But it was because she cared 
so much that she didn’t want to look. 

She jerked her thoughts away. 

4 

After the squire left her she automatically planned to have 
those bell sleeves slashed into style. She wondered if it would be 
mourning enough to wear stiff linen collars with black ties. They 
were fashionable and becoming and they would be appropriate 
for the store. 

The moon, bright now, made green shifting spots of light on 
the walls and floor. Perhaps she should have accepted Charlie 
May Humphrey’s offer to spend the night. Charlie May was her 
best friend. But Delia knew that Charlie May didn’t want to 
come, that she had offered to because she thought she should. 
Charlie May had a way of offering favors, sweetly but con¬ 
sciously, so that they were usually refused. And then she was 
capable and critical. If Delia didn’t give her a nice supper she 
would talk about it, regretfully, afterward. 

As Delia went into the kitchen that charred-cocoa smell grew 



i6 


TALK 


sourly sweet. She went for some candles, but she decided that 
she was hungry. Something hot would feel comforting. 

She couldn’t find the lifter for the cook stove. She broke a 
finger nail and bent a fork before she got a lid off, and then a 
whiff of ashes arose, like smoke from a genie’s bottle. The coal 
scuttle was too heavy for her, so she filled the stove with coal, 
lump by lump, and covered the coal with kindling and the 
kindling with paper. She struck a match to it, and banged the 
lid back. 

In the sink was a tin saucepan that leaked, an iron skillet 
filmed with blackened grease, and the pan she had used for 
cocoa, which had a purple-brown clotted rim inside. The tea¬ 
kettle was clean. 

She began to hum: 

“Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer true, 

I’m half crazy, all for the love of you-oo— 

She knew she must not sing now. Anyone who heard her would 
say she was heartless. 

Down went the teakettle on the stove, the quiet stove, the icy 
stove. Inside it, the paper had burned, the kindling had scorched, 
and the coal lay undisturbed. 

Delia sighed. Well, milk was filling, and as long as it was 
food and filling, what it was didn’t matter. She was going to 
Mrs. Mollie’s the next day. Keep paying guests herself? Delia 
giggled softly. She wouldn’t keep them long! She drank some 
milk and buttered some bread and watched the candle-light flicker 
over the dilapidated little kitchen. 

It was fine, she decided, to live in the New Century with 
electric lights and modern ideas. Women were going out in the 



TALK 


l 7 


world gracefully, and she would be one of the first. The Ladies* 
Book Club was studying Shaw and Ibsen, and the Periodical Club 
had had several articles on female suffrage. Of course Delia 
wouldn’t go that far. Having a career shouldn’t keep her from 
being feminine. 

Soft-voiced, she’d say, “Have you read this? It’s Rosa Carey’s 
latest book.” 

And some fascinating He would say, “No, but I will if you 
recommend it.” 

And there’d be people around her coming and going and 
admiring her, and she’d be gloriously, not tediously, busy. She’d 
be a part of things, not away from them. How chill and lonely 
it was in that house! She was not afraid, but she was lonely. 

She undressed quickly and put on her high-necked, long-sleeved 
nightgown, and before she crept into bed she knelt, and to her 
usual prayer she added: 

“And dear God, please bless what I am about to do, and make 
people understand.” 

Then, she slept and dreamed that she was riding in the ring 
at the county fair. She wore the short tight coat that belonged 
to a lady’s habit, but she was riding astride like a man. She 
had on trousers. Her father and mother were in the grand stand 
and everybody was looking at her and clapping hands. She rode 
faster and faster, and hurdles appeared for her to jump. She 
hadn’t ridden since she was a child, but she jumped them, and 
everybody shouted. And then there was an enormous one with 
an enormous projecting point in the middle, and that frightened 
her, but she rode toward it, anyway, trembling, but faster and 
faster . . . Then it vanished in a dreamless sleep. 



i8 


TALK 


4 

After Squire Preston’s discreet explanation, people took it as 
he had foreseen and as he had taken it. At first they were 
shocked and then they were amused and then they were relieved. 
The elders of the town, who had considered Delia’s plight some¬ 
thing of a personal responsibility, supported and applauded her 
venture. And what the Humphreys and the Gales and the Bird- 
woods and the Fletchers applauded, the rest of Merville acclaimed. 

In a month Webster’s Bookstore was a going concern. While 
Aunt Mandy and her daughter and her grandson, Tessum 
Napoleon, had applied soap and water and white paint, Delia 
had explored. 

Among a heap of rubbish she found dozens of tiny Japanese 
parasols which she piled on a table labeled, “ Favors for Euchre 
Parties and Cotillions.” They inspired Eudora Dexter to give 
a Japanese german, and that meant ordering fans and hara- 
kari daggers besides. 

The Louisville Planet was running a series of puzzle pictures 
called, “Books the Wide World Knows.” The picture of a man 
standing on the balls of his feet, craning his head in the opposite 
direction, suggested, Looking Backward. And Delia put all the 
old novels into a showcase labeled, “Books the Wide World 
Knows,” at fifteen cents each, assuming that when a competitor 
for the prize had deciphered a picture he would pay fifteen 
cents to keep another competitor from seeing the book itself. 
She found a lot of ancient harmonicas, and Tessum built them 
kito a magnificent glittering tower for the show window. And 




TALK 


19 


against the tower she propped her most ambitious label. Com¬ 
prising several popular songs, it read: 

“In the Evening by the Moonlight, Don’t Tell Her That You 
Love Her, Serenade Her, with The Latest Hit.” 

Delia’s labels were made of pasteboard, cut in the shape of 
four-leaved clovers (for luck), and written in violet ink. They 
helped to start the store before she could send for new stock. 
They helped to make it possible for her to send for new stock. 

And everybody said that Delia had inherited her grandfather’s 
business ability, and wasn’t it a pity she was a girl. And every¬ 
body saw that she had her mother’s charm, too. For being in 
trade did not keep her from being feminine. 

When Squire Preston came in at the end of the first month 
to unsnarl her finances, and found them smooth, she didn’t crow 
over him. She made him feel as if his going over them had 
made them smooth. 

He went next door and told the crowd in the livery stable 
that Delia Morehouse was just as sweet in that store as if she 
were in her mother’s parlor. Major Humphrey said she proved 
that Merville girls were the finest in the land. After three 
whiskies he proved he meant it. He bought a new set of Shakes¬ 
peare, although he had two in his library. 

For Delia had ordered sets of Shakespeare for her store; she 
ordered the Latin classics, too. She knew that Horace, as well 
as David Hamm , was quoted at Trenton’s. She knew her town 
and she knew her store. Marvelously, intuitively, she knew it. 
She had never fitted anywhere, but she fitted into that store 
like a picture into its frame. 

She used to be tired all the time; she wasn’t tired in the 
store. Each movement was quick and purposeful. She tapped 



20 


TALK 


energy that fed upon and renewed itself. It was creative and 
practical. It had found no outlet at home or in society, it had 
turned inward to dreams and discontent. Now it filled the gaps 
in her untrained mind with a sort of instinct that was almost 
ridiculously sound. She was a person who had found herself. 
Of course people felt this. It was one reason why they liked 
to go into the store. Mrs. Humphrey named it when she said 
the store was restful. 

And Delia had the advantage of being a deserving cause. To 
excuse their support of something not quite genteel—work not 
being genteel for any lady—the Humphreys and the Gales and 
the Birdwoods and the Fletchers protested too much. Actually 
they made you feel that it wasn’t right to pass a book around 
from friend to friend, as was the custom. They made you feel that 
you had to buy your own books and buy them often and from 
Delia. 

Mrs. Fletcher bought every one of Rosa Carey’s novels; Miss 
Choimondeley’s Red Pottage was expressed to Merville by the 
half dozen. According to rumor, Page Reeves sent a copy of 
Quo Vadh to each of nine ladies. 

Instead of sending flowers to Delia, Page, a good politician, 
sent books to others. Squire Preston, watching his plot work 
out, marked this, and spoke of it to his cronies. 

Page’s mother marked this, too, and was not pleased. Delia 
might be more desirable than Eudora Dexter, who was always 
creating a sensation, whose waist was the smallest, whose pic¬ 
ture hat was the largest, in town, but Delia was not the beautiful 
heiress that Faltha Reeves dreamed of for her son. 

Page Reeves was russet brown and black, smooth russet-brown 
skin and eyes, and black, black hair. He had a slender high- 




TALK 


21 


bridged nose and a full-lipped, mobile mouth. He might be a 
Jesuit priest or an actor; he was a lawyer and he wanted to be 
a politician. He was susceptible to moonlight and limelight. 

And Delia’s limelight outshone Eudora’s, which was hostile. 
She was talked about. When she decorated her room with swords 
and revolvers, they said it was because she liked to have arms 
around her. When Eudora heard that, she laughed; she didn’t 
care what anybody said. 

Delia was different. Everybody was praising Delia, and she 
did care what people said. At dances, she never wore her dress 
cut too low, or left the ballroom with an escort. She never sat 
in hammocks with a man. And she was careful, when the days 
grew short, to have some one walk home with her from the store. 
She avoided criticism. 

Delia was different from his mother, too. His mother was a 
remarkable manager, but she managed him. She made him do 
chores about the house. With the blinds pulled down in the 
kitchen, she made him scrub pots and pans. She was continually 
asking him to run down to the grocery for some special delicacy. 

Although Squire Preston had sent him to help Delia get settled 
in the store, Delia didn’t ask him to do anything. She was a 
remarkable manager, too. But she managed Tessum, who did 
the work Page’s mother would have had him do, and she managed 
the store amazingly. 

She didn’t manage Page; she listened to him. From Squire 
Preston’s office across the street, Page, seeing the express wagon 
stop at Delia’s, would rush over “to help her unpack new stock.” 
There he would stand around and talk, while she gave Tessum his 
orders. 

v Page talked about himself. 



22 


TALK 


It was during the usual business lull. The men lingered at 
home to smoke after-dinner pipes, the women took afternoon naps. 

“I wonder if it’s true,” said Page, “that 'there is a tide in 
the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.’ ” 

“I wonder if it’s true,” said Delia, “that 'there is a tide in 
the affairs of women which, taken at the flood, leads on to 
fortune.’ I think my tide rose when I started this store. Page, I 
do love it so! Tessum, just run along up the street and take Life's 
Trivial Round to Mrs. Alice Humphrey. The major’s going up to 
Louisville and she said she wanted something to read tonight. 
Quick, Tessum, before she borrows something! ” 

Tessum, a wiry yellow negro boy of twelve, took the book and 
ran. 

“It isn’t nice for a girl to love a store!” Page said. “This 
place is giving you notions. Delia. . . .” 

She was distracting, with her shining waved pompadour, so 
curiously silvery blond; she was distracting in her stiff white shirt¬ 
waist and collar, so white they were blue. He moved closer 
to her. 

“Delia. . . ” 

Young Les Henderson popped in at the door. “I’d leave my 
happy, happy home for you!” he sang out, falsetto. “Say, Miss 
Delia, I brought you some biscuits and ham. Mamma says next 
time you forget to come to dinner, she ain’t going to send you 
a bite. Nit!” he winked a green eye at her. 

“Delia, you didn’t forget your dinner!” 

“I wasn’t hungry.” 

“Well, you take the cake!” 

“As long as I don’t have to bake it! Want a bite?” 




TALK 


23 


Page took a beaten biscuit with delicious country ham in it, 
but it spoiled the romantic moment. 

As Les left them he winked at them, and shrilled his significant 
tune. 

“Rascal,” said Page, glad to be teased. “But seriously, Delia, 
I’ve been thinking about my career. I’ve got to choose whether 
I’ll go into politics or try for that appointment as railroad lawyer. 
Squire Preston says as soon as he gets enough money to guar¬ 
antee good liquor for the rest of his life, he’s going to retire before 
he’s too old to enjoy it.” 

“Does he mean that?” 

“Yes, he really is going to retire. And being a regular country 
lawyer with nothing but a few title cases is too slow for me! 
But if I work for the railroad its good-by to politics. You know 
how the Democratic party hates the K. and T. And I hate 
Goebel. It was bad enough to have poor white trash for state 
senator, but to have him grab the election machinery at that con¬ 
vention and get himself nominated for Governor, when they didn’t 
want him, was going too far. The convention might have been 
a heap of dirty dishrags, for all Goebel cared. I don’t know 
whether Taylor was elected Governor or not, but Goebel doesn’t 
care about that, either. He wants to be Governor, and he’s going 
to be Governor, if he has to shoot ’em right and left. He’s shot 
one man who stood in his way.” 

“Don’t other men feel like you do about him?” 

“Yes, ma’am, but they don’t want to bolt the party, and right 
now Goebel and his sycophants is the party. Any decent man 
would get it where Hannah wore her beads. Goebel’s the whole 
show.” 

And Delia, understanding him, thought, “He doesn’t like some 



24 


TALK 


one else to be the whole show,” and because she was falling in 
love with him, she called it ambition. 

Then Page said, “Well, I mustn’t bother your little head about 
these serious matters. Listen to what Dr. Weir Mitchell wrote 
in a magazine. He pulled out the clipping and read it: 


“Woman’s finest nobleness is to be homeful for others and to suggest by 
the honest sweetness of her nature by her chanty, by the hosp.ta ty of her 
opinions, such ideas of honor, truth, and friendliness as cluster, like porch 
roses, around our best ideals of home. 


But, as a customer turned the door knob, Delia whispered, 
flippantly, “Speaking of hospitality, you just watch me welcome 


this visitor.” 


“Delia! ” Page protested. 

Because he was falling in love with her, he decided that she 
was nobly looking on the bright side of her misfortune. 



From day to day Mrs. Reeves put off speaking to Page about 
his attentions to Delia. She had said that it was common for any 
girl to earn her living. She had added vindictively that Delia 
must like the store, or she wouldn’t do so well with it. Delias 
activity offended Mrs. Reeves’ love of comfort and ease, and now 
Delia was capturing Page. 

Mrs. Reeves knew that he was susceptible and romantic. 
Delia’s plight would naturally appeal to him. But if he had 
to marry, Mrs. Reeves wanted him to choose a beautiful heiress, 
a fairy princess for a prince. She had brought Page up to think 
he was a prince, set apart for a glamorous life, owing allegiance 





TALK 


25 


only to her, because, as she so often told him, she had sacrificed 
everything for him. 

In reality, beyond the discomfort of giving him birth and tend¬ 
ing him during infancy, she had sacrificed nothing for him. 
Widowed early, she had used his devotion for the small emotional 
outlet she needed. He was a hand-boy to her comfort. 

Faltha Reeves lived for her own comfort. Every morning while 
she dressed she planned her menu for the day. She wrote it on a 
slip of paper after she curled her hair. She did her own cooking. 
This was not absolutely necessary, but she wouldn’t trust anyone 
else with it. She did it admirably, with a minimum of effort* 

It was her love of ease that made her put off speaking to Page 
about Delia. Every time she disparaged Delia to Page, he gave 
her a sarcastic answer, which was new for Mrs. Reeves. She was 
used to boasting how he hastened to obey her every whim and 
that they never disagreed. She feared a scene when she con¬ 
fronted him seriously, and she had always avoided scenes. 

She had not spoken to him about Eudora, and that danger 
had passed, although Delia had routed it. 

Faltha Reeves remembered how her friends had chattered about 
the danger of Eudora. She shuddered at the memory of the 
time Eudora, wearing a white serge suit, had jumped off the 
foot-bridge into the river. Lee Utley had dared her to, and Bob 
Fletcher bet Major Humphrey, who was giving a picnic, that she 
wouldn’t. Eudora had sung out, “Anybody that ’ll take a dare 
’ll suck eggs,” as she went over the side. And Page had followed 
her into Pherson River, where he lost his sword scarf pin and 
caught a bad cold. Of course he needn’t have rescued her; she 
proved to be capable of rescuing herself. 

And then one day she was at Phillipa Merriam’s house, near 



26 


TALK 


the square, and she said, “Goodness! it’s slow. Let’s start some¬ 
thing.” Across the way was the Elks’ Building, and she took a 
gun and shot at its stone elk’s head, hitting it between the eyes. 
People ran from all directions, since the shot came plainly from 
the Merriam house. They found the two girls in the middle of a 
game of “old maid.” But the room smelled of powder. The 
men laughed, and one of them raved over what a good shot it 
was, and Bud Hemp, the sheriff, shook his head at Eudora. “I’m 
going to have to lock you up some day!” said he. “If you do, 
Mr. Hemp, will you teach me how to play poker? I heard that 
you beat four aces with a royal flush the other night.” She 
flirted with him, and he had a wife and four children. 

Everybody said she was as swift as greased lightning. Every¬ 
body shrugged and said: “It’s just Eudora Dexter. She doesn’t 
care what she does.” 

But everybody had begun to add, “Well, Delia Morehouse 
has cut Eudora out, and I believe Page is serious this time.” 

Mrs. Reeves heard that twice. And then she cooked a specially 
good dinner and dressed in a new and becoming plaid silk. 

After dinner, she said, “Page, Squire Preston says that every 
speech you make is better than the last.” 

Page looked gratified. 

“Oh, by the way,” she added, “people are sort of talking about 
your rushing Delia Morehouse.” 

“Well?” his voice had an icy edge. 

Mrs. Reeves shook her well-groomed head sadly. “She’s not 
the kind of wife I want for my son.” 

“Why not?” 

“There’s something common about any girl who works in a 
store.” 



TALK 


27 


“Is that so? Everybody in town is raving about how wonder¬ 
ful she’s been! And the Morehouses are a better family than 
ours by a darned sight.” 

“My! Page, how can you talk to me like that?” Tears came 
into her pretty eyes. Page ignored them. “I’m only telling you 
for your own good. It’s because I love you so, because I’ve sacri¬ 
ficed everything for you, that I want you to be ha-happy.” 

“You want me to be happy! You want to choose a wife for 
me. I don’t know who it would be. You’ve hated every girl 
I ever rushed. And now just let me tell you, I’m doing my own 
choosing. This is my affair. I’m going to have my own way 
for once, I won’t be the first man who has married against his 
mother’s wishes!” 

Heartlessly, theatrically, he strode out of the room, and left 
his mother sobbing on her best sofa cushion, with the sickening 
conviction that she had made up his mind for him. If he weren’t 
already in love with Delia, the romantic gesture of “marrying 
against his mother’s wishes” would settle it. 

For two days they ate perfect meals in constrained silence, 
which is not good for the digestion. 

Determined to put an end to that Mrs. Reeves went downtown 
for sweet potatoes. Page had never been able to resist them. 

Mr. Scanlon said if she would wait he would open a fresh bag. 
He put a chair for her behind the big glass show window. She 
could see everything that happened on the square. 

She saw Delia and Eudora walking down the street together. 

Delia was on her way to the store, apparently, and Eudora, 
naturally, was “just going downtown.” 

Lately, Delia was curiously fascinated by Eudora, because 
she had been her predecessor with Page. Being with Eudora 



28 


TALK 


seemed to bring Delia close to Page, and she was always wonder¬ 
ing whether Page had said this or that to her. But Eudora was 
so open and natural that she was noncommittal. And then, she 
had had many beaux. 

The girls had to pick their way. There had been a heavy rain 
the day before and torrents of brown water rushed through the 
gutters, widening them. At the livery stable corner it was 
so wide, you couldn’t step down from the curb and across the 
street. 

“We’d better go around,” said Delia. “If we walk from here 
to the car tracks, and back on the other side, we can manage 
without getting our shoes muddy.” 

They wore trailing skirts which they had to hold in a cluster 
of folds at one side. 

Eudora had copper-colored hair and sherry-colored eyes. She 
had an alert, untamed grace. 

“Let’s jump across,” she said. 

“It isn’t necessary, and everybody would see us. I’m going 
around,” said Delia. 

Eudora lifted her skirt to her slender, pretty ankles. She 
wore silk stockings. The men in front of the livery stable watched 
her. Mrs. Reeves, in Scanlon’s grocery, watched her. 

She extended a tiny patent-leather slipper. Her skirt was still 
in her way. Suddenly she laughed, and raised her skirt to her 
knees and, leaping, she landed in the middle of the street. She 
seemed to enjoy her own agility. 

Mrs. Reeves was disgusted with her. And, sensitive to beauty, 
Mrs. Reeves was worried, because Eudora’s legs were beautiful; 
they made her afraid for Page. She was glad he had not seen 
them. For Eudora was more of a danger than Delia. Eudora 



TALK 


29 


was not malleable, and she was fast. Delia had walked around 
that puddle, as a lady should. 

Mrs. Reeves went home and told Page she would welcome 
Delia if he wanted her. She told herself that she was saving him 
from Eudora. And it was pleasant to have Page his own cheery 
self again, exuberant over those sweet potatoes. It was pleasant 
to have peace. 


* 

Meanwhile, Webster’s Bookstore prospered. It looked more like 
a sitting room than a store, for at the back was a sofa, surrounded 
by a shallow L of white-painted bookshelves. When a gap oc¬ 
curred in them, Delia covered it with a square of purple brocade 
cut from an old ball dress of her mother’s. This was termed 
a “funny touch, but you might expect that of a woman.” It 
helped to give the store the aspect of a cherished room. And the 
book most recently praised by the Louisville Planet was always 
on the marble-topped table next to a cut-glass bowl full of pussy¬ 
willow branches. 

It was a glowing little place and it gave Delia glow for glow. 
From it she got a sense of happy activity, of energy fulfilled. 
And she couldn’t get enough of it. She made Christmas time 
an excuse to spend evenings there, arranging this and rearranging 
that. 

When Charlie May Fletcher bought tallies for a St. Valentine’s 
euchre party, Delia said she would be too busy to go, though 
Charlie May confided that everything would be in harmony— 
heart-shaped ice-cream and cake and a tiny gold bracelet heart 



30 


TALK 


for the girls’ prize, and a tiny gold watch-charm heart for the 
men. 

“You’re making a mistake,” Charlie May warned Delia, “if 
you don’t keep in. People will stop inviting you.” 

“Do you think so?” said Delia, anxiously. “But I love it here 
at the store and I play such an awful game of euchre. I wouldn’t 
make a habit of refusing invitations, for anything! That would 
look queer. But I thought with you it might be different. You’ll 
understand, Charlie May!” 

Delia did play an “awful” game of euchre, so Charlie May 
“reckoned she would forgive her this time.” And then Charlie 
May purchased her supply of Easter cards. They were lovely 
Easter cards. And when they were admired, Charlie May 
would say: “Did you like that little card? I bought it from 
poor Delia.” It was “the thing,” to buy from “poor Delia.” 

This virtue, however, had its reward, because Delia stocked 
articles that hitherto were not to be found in Merville. From 
her you could get manuals and materials for china painting, 
manuals for knowing wild flowers, and the latest collection of 
chafing-dish recipes. You were never told that she was “out of” 
Mrs. Rorer’s Canning and Preserving , or Miss Harland’s House 
and Home . And instead of ordering monogrammed paper from 
Louisville, you could order it from Delia. 

Squire Preston said that, being a woman, Delia knew what the 
“fair sex” wanted. Pilch Trenton said that store suited her like 
a saddle suits a gaited horse. And the major said his wife was 
at Delia’s so much that he got a chance to smoke in his parlor. 
But everybody was delighted at the prospect of Delia’s marriage 
to Page Reeves. 

The town had accepted with good grace a situation it really 



TALK 


3i 


deplored. It rejoiced that Delia, who certainly deserved a home 
of her own, was going to get one, and that she would leave the 
business world, where no lady belonged. 

It laughed indulgently when Squire Preston retired with the 
pretension that he was sacrificing himself to Page Reeves’ future. 
The squire was an incurable sentimentalist. But this retirement 
and Page’s succession as representative for the Kentucky and 
Tennessee Railroad in that district would permit the young couple 
to keep a servant. Delia’s domestic failings were well known, and 
people even named Aunt Mandy Poison, who had worked for 
the Morehouses in former days, and who could manage without 
direction. 

The town settled all this before Page and Delia did. 

Then, in January, they settled it. 

“I’ve decided on the railroad work,” said Page. “Squire’s 
retiring this spring. Are you glad?” 

“Why, yes, if you are,” said Delia, primly. She knew what 
was coming and, wanting it, she tried to stave it off with chatter. 

“I’ve decided to carry belt buckles and cut-glass bowls in 
the store. Little things, you know, that everybody wants.” 

In second mourning, she wore lavender broadcloth with frills 
and a high lace collar. Silk braid outlined her tiny waist. Sit¬ 
ting very straight on the edge of Mrs. Mollie’s sofa, she looked 
like a valiant little cavalier. 

Page rose from his chair and stood before her. 

“You’re what I want. And the store can go to hell.” 

She drew a long breath that caught, queerly, below her throat. 
He kissed her, over and over again, hot, stabbing kisses that 
thrilled, and tender, soft ones on her eyelids. They hurt 
exquisitely. 



32 


TALK 


An hour later, two hours later, he said, “I was right when I said 
the store could go to hell, wasn’t I?” 

“I reckon it ’ll have to, if that’s where stores go when they 
die. Poor little store! ” Strange that at such a moment she should 
think sadly of anything! 

“Don’t bother about the store, darling. You’ll have nothing 
ever to bother about but me, honey—nothing but us.” 

“I won’t have to do the cooking?” She turned to him laughing. 

“Heaven forbid! I know your reputation.” Brows knit in 
mock horror, he laughed back at her. 

And then he drew her to her feet and took her in his arms 
again, and they stopped laughing. 

Ah . . . she must have been made to fit just there, deliciously. 

. . . How wonderful to be held tighter . . . tighter still. ... 
Suddenly everything went swimming and her hands tried to push 
his away. How . . . how funny . . . the way his heart beat- 
beat-beat under his coat. . . . 

“Scared, honey?” he whispered. 

Dim-eyed, she looked up at him and kissed him, her lips cling¬ 
ing to his. She was not frightened; she was bewildered because at 
the same time she felt tender pain and sharper bliss, at the same 
time she felt so weak and yet so strong. 

They loved each other. . . . 

4 

The next day they announced their engagement to an unfeeling 
world. Their world was feeling nothing but shock. For that day 
William Goebel had been shot by an unseen assassin from a 
window in the State House building at Frankfort. 



TALK 


33 


Instead of the congratulations and jokes that Page expected 
and wanted to enjoy, he got: “Fine! . God! Isn’t it terrible? 
About Goebel, I mean. They’re administering the Governor’s 
oath of office to him, but they say he can’t live through the 
night. And Frankfort’s under martial law.” 

Or: “I hope you’ll be awfully happy. Say, have you heard that 
Governor Taylor’s adjourned the legislature, to meet in Laurel 
County? But the Democrats won’t go! Damn those Republi¬ 
cans! To shoot a man down like that!” 

Goebel took the limelight away from Page’s engagement, and, 
secretly, Page resented his taking it. 

And when Goebel died, Delia gave the cut-glass bowl in its place 
on her store table for contributions to the Goebel Monument 
Committee. Goebel, dead, became a martyr. And his state went 
into bitter, bloody strife. 

But Page asked Delia, “Why do you want to put a new one of 
those everlasting labels in the window, when you’ll be giving up 
the store before they hardly get the contributions started?” 

With a vehemence that surprised her, and a resentment that 
surprised him, she answered that her labels did last and that was 
the why of them! People liked them and looked for them. They 
had helped to make the store. 

“I don’t care what made it, I’d like to break it.” A funny 
little tendon at one side of his nose tightened, making a white 
stain on his brown skin and making him look strange and sullen. 

Dismayed, Delia wished he wouldn’t look like that! 

After they had kissed and made up, Page blamed Goebel 
for their first quarrel. 

William Goebel caused many quarrels, but not that one. The 



34 


TALK 


cause was something in Delia that Page would not face, though 
Delia had to face it. 

She did not doubt her love for Page. But when she dreamed 
little pictures of herself entertaining beautifully in their home, 
she was not thrilled. Page never failed to thrill her. 

The store thrilled her. It seemed to have a life, a personality 
of its own, which she had created. And her life was soaked in 
it. Spring meant summer novels, and fall meant preparation for 
the Christmas rush. Rain ruined business and fair weather made 
it fair. Friends gained interest as potential customers. To see 
dear Mrs. Birdwood was to think, “She’ll want James Lane Allen’s 
new book.” When she bought a new dress her first consideration 
was its suitability for the store. 

Habits were inescapable. Now when she ordered her first 
trousseau dress, into her mind, unbidden, spurted the thought that 
if she had braid at the wrist instead of frills, she could wear it 
at the store. And unbidden was the twinge that followed close 
on the reminder that for her there would be no store. It was 
wrong to have that twinge. It was disloyal to Page. But Delia 
had to face the fact that she would miss the store intensely. 

Her lover should be her life. She should think of nothing save 
her marriage to the man she loved. 

But the only dream picture that had ever come true was Delia 
in crisp attire, running a small store, the heroine of the 
community! 

When she should have planned original parties for the future, 
she planned new ways to arrange the store windows. When she 
should have been getting beauty sleep in the mornings, she hur¬ 
ried to the store to skim the books and study the Bookman’s 
Weekly . Hours that she wanted to be with Page were hours 




TALK 


35 


that the store might have. Though she would be with Page the 
rest of her life, she had only a few weeks left for the store. Thus 
she argued when Page wasn’t near. When he was near, her 
passion for him fought her. She couldn’t deny him when he 
was there. 

No person suspected this conflict save Page’s mother. Faltha 
Reeves, mildly, incurably jealous of Delia, searched for flaws in 
her, and found them. 

But she stopped by to see Delia at the store and said: “Poor 
child! My! You’ve had a wretched time. It will be fine for 
you to get away from all this and into your own home.” 

“Yes’m,” echoed Delia, 

She crushed the Bookman’s Weekly in her hand, and then 
quickly, almost penitentially, smoothed out every crease she had 
made. She had been marking the books she would order if she 
were not giving up the store. 

“It’s low of her to like this,” Mrs. Reeves thought. 

This was a hidden thought. Apparently Faltha Reeves was 
delighted with Delia. She would not have it known that Page had 
opposed her wishes. 

And so she said: “Delia, I want to entertain for you all. I 
thought it would be nice to have a picnic supper out at Pherson 
Bend for you and Page to-morrow night.” And then, briskly, 
“Now, I’ll bring chicken salad. Can you get Mrs. Mollie to fix 
some deviled eggs for you? Charlie May Humphrey is bringing 
country ham, and Eudora Dexter suggested transparent pies. 
Page would have her! But Luna Hawkins is cooking for them 
now, and she makes a pie crust that . . . well. . . .” Mrs. 
Reeves mused on Luna Hawkins’ pie crust as she fastened the 
enameled buttons on her trim jacket. 



36 


TALK 


Her waist was slender, girlish, and she dressed cleverly to 
emphasize it. She was a small, brown-haired woman, with sand- 
gray eyes and thick, short brown lashes. At the Springs she had 
been taken for Page’s wife. 

Several customers came in just then and wandered aimlessly. 
Delia started toward them, checked herself, and said, with re¬ 
markable tranquillity, “This is so sweet of you, Mrs. Reeves!” 

Mrs. Reeves lingered. She saw Delia’s attention wander with 
those customers, and saw it checked. She knew that Delia was 
more interested in what they might buy than in what her picnic 
might eat. 

Mrs. Reeves began to put on her kid gloves slowly, the way 
kid gloves should be put on—fingers first, hands before the 
thumb. 

“I reckon we’ll boil the coffee out there. No meal is good 
without something hot. Have you a glove buttoner? Thank you, 
my dear. Don’t you think, Delia, that we could take the water 
in a bottle?” 

“Yes’m,” said Delia. 

A woman flipped the leaves of a Parlor Amusements , that she 
particularly wanted to sell. If Delia could only tell her that it 
was reduced from one-twenty-five to one-eighteenl 

The gloves were on, but the fingers must be smoothed. Mrs. 
Reeves smiled suavely, “Do you think it’s too early for a picnic?” 
she asked. 

“No’m,” said Delia. 

Across the way a farmer drove up to Scanlon’s grocery to de¬ 
liver a crate of loudly squawking chickens, frying size. Their call 
was irresistible and Mrs. Reeves left Delia for them. 



TALK 


37 


4 

It was too early for a picnic, but no other form of entertainment 
would provide a supper furnished largely by the guests. 

In the Humphrey carriage, under its flapping fringed linen top, 
Mrs. Humphrey assured Mrs. Reeves that the night was “quite 
balmy.” Mrs. Humphrey never failed to tell people what they 
wanted to hear, but she was counting on a hot toddy as soon as 
she got home. 

Bob Fletcher drove, and his left hand held Charlie May’s right 
one through the armhole of her golf cape. Such a liberty Charlie 
May would have repelled had it not been invisible and safe. 

Eudora Dexter and Lee Utley were bicycling. 

Of course Page and Delia had a buggy from Trenton’s. There 
was a moon. But Page stared at the horse, a livery-stable nag, 
as spiritless as lead. 

Delia was happy in his nearness. If his mood were distant, 
she could fill the silence with her thoughts. She pondered 
whether to order a lot of belt buckles and jabots for the short 
time she had left in business. This was prolonged on the theory 
that a buyer was easiest found for a going concern. The buyer 
was mythical. Everybody knew that there was nobody looking for 
a store. But looking for him was a matter of duty and form. 

As a sample, Delia had procured a jabot for herself. It was 
pleated ecru lace, flowing crisply from her high lace collar, pinned 
there with a diamond breastpin which had been her mother’s. 
She wore a tailor-made suit of mauve broadcloth with soutache 
braid edging the coat. She wore a plumed hat. And, shorn of 
her small bustle and her breast pads and her trailing skirt, she 



38 


TALK 


would have resembled a young gallant of ’75* She wasn t mascu¬ 
line, she was gallantly boyish, especially when she bent her head 
forward in a courtly little way she had when she was interested. 

They reached the pavilion at Pherson Bend, and Mrs. Reeves 
sang out: “Page, do open these olives for me. Don’t use your 
knife, you’d bruise the top layer. Here’s an opener.” 

Charlie May was setting the table, and the boys were trying 
to build a fire, back of the pavilion. 

“Hey! somebody get some dry branches for some kindling.” 

“Kindling! Urn, I smell a rat,” whispered Eudora behind her 
lace handkerchief to Lee Utley. 

“You’re a warm baby!” said Lee Utley. 

“I’d like to be,” she shivered. 

“I’ll get some kindling,” offered Delia, innocent of play on the 
word. She was surprised when Eudora winked at Lee, and they 
laughed. 

No higher than her instep did Delia lift her trailing skirt. 
As she passed the table she smiled wistfully at Page. His response 
was forced. Poor darling! She wondered why he was blue 
to-night. 

Near the worm fence where the horses were hitched was a locust 
tree. Thoms bristled among its tender, feathery leaves. Its top 
was silvered by the moon. The lower branches went black. 
Beyond was a mass of blackness, a grove of beach trees, and 
through them you got silver, shifting, jagged glimpses of the river. 

But Delia’s gaze dragged back to that treetop, where the 
thorns, blown on by the wind and shone on by the moon, twinkled 
like stars. They were sharp and cruel and very fascinating. They 
were so beautiful that they made you ache. Or did she suddenly 
feel miserable because Page was blue? She was no longer moved 



TALK 


39 


by her own feelings; she was a part of his. She could not escape 
from them. 

She twisted a few branches off the locust tree and piled them 
in her arms. 

“Delia Morehouse,” shrilled Charlie May, “thorns won’t burn 
and they’ll tear your suit! Don’t you remember in the Bible? 
‘As the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of a 
fool.’ ” 

Delia plucked the green spikes off her coat, hoping Mrs. Reeves 
had not noticed. 

Mrs. Reeves had noticed. 

“I don’t want any fools laughing at me,” said Delia, sincerely. 

“She’s exactly like her dear mother was,” murmured Mrs. 
Humphrey to Mrs. Reeves. 

“Your kind of kindling ’d burn, wouldn’t it?” whispered Lee 
Utley to Eudora. 

He tapped a bottle in the pocket of his overcoat. Lee con¬ 
sidered himself very devilish. He was always asking kisses of 
girls and wondering why he never got them. But he wore the 
“nobbiest” of peg-leg trousers over the “hottest” of socks. 

There were undercurrents at that picnic. Eudora had been 
drinking some whisky. The chaperons suspected it. Page, lost in 
troubled brooding, stared at the musicians’ empty platform. Delia 
worried without knowing what she worried about. Mrs. Reeves 
planned to sell an old dress to the Dexter’s cook, so she could 
discover what shortening had gone into those pies. Complacently 
Mrs. Humphrey watched Bob Fletcher courting Charlie May. 
Bob, owner and proprietor of the Merville News, was a good 
catch. And Charlie May was managing him, coolly, competently. 

After supper Bob mounted the platform, and with his foot on 



40 


TALK 


the stringed-accompaniment pedal, played a tinny tune on the 
piano. Lee produced his banjo and they tinkled into “Turkey in 
the Straw.” 

Suddenly Eudora began to dance a breakdown. Her white 
skin flushed, each tendril of her copper hair seemed to be fierily 
alert. Her brown tarn fell to the floor. Faster, faster, she danced, 
her body charged with motion. 

So alive was her slim form that it seemed apart from the 
absurd puffing of her woolen frock. 

“My! She might as well have on tights,” sniffed Mrs. Reeves. 

“Hot stuff!” Lee Utley shouted, and changed to “There’ll be 
a Hot Time in the Old Town To-night.” 

Eudora’s pompadour collapsed into a ring of flame around 
her vivid face. Her body didn’t follow the music; it was one 
with the whining, pulsing rhythm. 

“Tum-te-tum, tum-tum-te-tum, te-tum-m-m.” 

Out went one hip and in the other. Up and down went her 
little feet. Her pointed young breasts shook. It was the hoochy- 
coochy dance and she danced it with primitive pagan youth. 

“It’s time to go home,” Mrs. Reeves called, icily. “Stop please, 
Eudora, at once.” 

Eudora grinned at her and stopped. 

The boys departed to unhitch the horses, and the girls helped 
Eudora to find her hairpins. 

“Why do you do a thing like that?” wailed Charlie May. 

“I just felt like it. It was fun.” 

“What a reason!” said Delia. 

“Where did you ever see such a dance?” asked Charlie May. 

“Where you all saw it. Circus. Streets of Cairo. Tum-te-tum, 
tum-tum-te-tum. . . .” 





TALK 


4i 


“For Heaven’s sake, stop it!” said Charlie May, tense. 

“I don’t know what good society is coming to. In my day, a 
young person as fast as that wouldn’t have been received,” mur¬ 
mured Mrs. Humphrey. She was a perfect murmurer. 

“After this, I’ll not receive her,” said Mrs. Reeves, furiously. 

“Everybody has such respect for your judgment, my dear. I 
tell the major that you can rely on Faltha to know what’s what. 
But some people will keep on receiving Eudora. She has a way 
with her. People always say, ‘Oh, that’s just Eudora Dexter.’ ” 

But Mrs. Reeves, very motherly of tone, asked Delia if her 
suit were warm enough and if she didn’t want an extra robe 
from the carriage. She was so glad that people would never say, 
“Oh, that’s just Eudora Reeves,” that she could welcome Delia, 
with all her faults. 

“Thank you just the same,” said Delia, “I never feel the cold.” 

“I know why! Spoony, spoony.” Eudora was undaunted. 



On the way home Delia nestled close to Page. 

“This is a tailor-made moonlight night, made to order for you 
and me, isn’t it?” 

“Uh-huh.” 

“Uh-huh,” she mimicked. “Well, I’ll tell you something stir¬ 
ring. Aunt Mandy told me this morning she’ll have our little 
cottage ready to come into when we get back from the Springs. 
Aunt Mandy’s such a comfort! Page, wasn’t I silly trying to 
light a fire with thorns? Once, before mother died, I had to order 
some wood, and they asked me if I wanted a wagon load, and I 



42 


TALK 


said if we didn’t use it all that winter would it keep? Page, 
what’s the matter? You’re not even smiling.” 

Page twisted the reins, and untwisted them. 

“I don’t feel like smiling, honey. We won’t be able to have 
Aunt Mandy.” 

“You’re joking!” 

“No. I didn’t get the K. and T. appointment.” 

“But why?” 

“They didn’t explain. They just appointed Roger Green.” 

“He can’t make a speech. . . . Why, he lisps!” she argued, edg¬ 
ing away from the fact. 

“He suits them.” 

Delia turned to Page. Suddenly she knew that he was hiding 
something. 

“Honey,” she begged, “you’re not telling me the truth.” 

He shrugged. “If that’s the way you feel . . . elk, elk, gid- 
dap.” He slapped the reins. 

“Who makes the appointments?” she persisted. 

“Henry Royall.” 

“He used to be a friend of papa’s! And . . . after the failure 
he tried to indict papa. He lost a lot of money. Oh! He’s 
heard you’re going to marry me, and this is spite work.” 

“That’s a wild idea.” Page laughed. 

His laughter was patently forced. He wanted her to know the 
truth while he enjoyed the nobility of not telling her. 

“It’s because of my family. . . Oh, Page. . . .” 

“It might be politics,” he protested, conscientiously, “Royall’s 
a gold-bug Republican, friend of Taylor’s. Almost got knocked 
down in Tisdale the other day because he bragged about it. 
Anyway, I’ve always been a Democrat.” 



TALK 


43 


“You haven’t been mixed up in politics lately, and nobody 
could accuse you of being for Goebel! Roger Green’s a Demo¬ 
crat, too. Darling, I ought to give you up and not spoil your 
future!” 

For answer, he loosened the reins and wrapped them around 
the whip socket. He drew Delia into his arms. 

She stopped thinking. 

Where a big tree loomed out over the road, darkening it, Page’s 
mouth found hers, found and held, until she could scarcely 
breathe. She didn’t want to breathe, she only wanted to feel that 
tingling aliveness that was an aching pleasure and an exquisite 
pain. 

Neither heard a tinkling, groaning, te-chug-chug-chug, neither 
saw the twin circles of pale orange light. But the horse saw them 
and bounded forth in his terror. 

It was the Fletchers’ new horseless carriage. 

Page controlled the horse while the red chariot passed. 

“Damn those contraptions! They ought to be against the law. 
Scaring horses out of their wits.” He had to attend the quiver¬ 
ing animal until she regained them. 

And Delia began to think, and to worry. 

She had a sense of bewilderment, of worry over Page’s career, 
and, to her shame, of worry over her own. The air was sweet 
with honeysuckle, but Delia smelled charred cocoa, that odor 
which mingled always with her memories of the bleak Morehouse 
cottage where she had tried housework. For if they couldn’t af¬ 
ford Aunt Mandy, she must try it again. She reproached herself 
because the idea of trying it dismayed her! 

“Were you scared, darling?” asked Page, hoping she had been. 



44 


TALK 


He liked to think of women being frightened by leaping horses 
that he could control. 

“Of what?” said Delia. 

“Why you never can tell what an old nag ’ll do when she’s 
scared.” Delia’s want of tremors offended his conception of cling¬ 
ing womanhood. 

“Oh, I knew this one wouldn’t do anything,” she said, sensibly. 

But she was feminine enough in his arms, and he caught her 
to him again. 

All thought went from her, save that nothing mattered when 
she had Page, when his touch gave and took of ecstasy. 

4 

The next morning started badly. 

Delia lived at Mrs. Mollie Henderson’s. Mrs. Mollie wore 
rose-colored hats and rose-colored spectacles. The hats were sup¬ 
posed to glaze her age, and the spectacles never failed to glaze 
her life. 

People said, “I don’t see how Mollie stands all she’s gone 
through.” Nor did she stand it; she glazed it with rose-color. 
When her husband had delirium tremens she considered it neu¬ 
ralgia. If he were noisy she told the neighbors that they were 
practicing amateur theatricals. When he died she could be glad 
he was no longer tortured by “that wicked pain.” When she found 
herself penniless, she said, “A house without guests is like a 
church without members.” And she perfumed the bills she sent 
those guests. 

She garnished each noon meal with pink paper, making it a 





TALK 4S 

“luncheon,” at which no well-bred person could ask for a second 
helping. Such economies were for Leslie, a genius, species 
unknown. 

He was to go to Princeton and further if he would. 

She alone was unaware that Leslie was the worst boy in town. 
He threw stones at Mrs. Reeves one afternoon, just to watch her 
dodge them. Squire Preston threatened to have him locked up 
to save damages every Hallowe’en and April fool’s day. 

This morning he stretched a rope across Delia’s doorstep. 

Before the bathroom door his mother had delicately placed 
a screen, and behind it he hid, and cackled when Delia sprawled on 
the hall matting. 

His mother’s little gentleman rushed to her aid. 

“You brute!” Delia jerked her skirts down, hoping that he had 
not seen her bowed legs, which were a source of secret 
mortification. 

“You don’t blame me!” His green eyes looked as artless as his 
cowlick. 

“Oh no! Rope for a door mat is the latest invention. And 
now I’ll have to dress all over again, and its county-court day, 
and I’ll be late at the store,” she wailed. 

By the time her pompadour was adjusted over her rat and her 
belt over her skirt, it was late. By the time she reached the 
square there was a fringe of buggies and surreys around the park. 
Farmers were trading horses and mules in the streets. And in 
the horseless buggies sat their wives and children, staring at the 
town. 

Delia found Tessum unpacking a box of belt buckles. She had 
ordered them against time. It was ridiculous to experiment, 



46 


TALK 


to order novelties when time was so short. But she couldn’t re¬ 
sist them. She wanted to see how they would take. 

When she opened their little white cases she saw that they 
wouldn’t take at all. For they were alike, two dozen pairs of 
German-silver fleurs-de-lis. If she sold them, after the first euchre 
party she would have twenty-four dissatisfied customers. The 
women of Merville insisted on style with individuality. 

Tessum screwed up his yellow face as if he had bitten an unripe 
persimmon. “Lawsy, Miss Delia, what are we goin’ ter do? 
Won’t they take ’em back effen I wrap ’em as if they ain’t been 
touched?” 

Tessum was the envy of Shak Rag. He worked where there 
was “sparkin’ goin’ on,” and something always “goin’ on,” and 
Miss Delia “never was mean, nohow.” 

Now she said: “No, Tessum. We can’t send them back. I 
have to think out something to do with them.” 

Of the store she could think concretely, unblocked by her 
usual standards and feelings and fears. Here were belt buckles 
to be sold. To whom and how? The problem did not daunt her; 
it spurred her, interested her. 

Major Humphrey strode in. 

“How pretty we look this morning, Miss Delia! Now I want 
you to help me select a little birthday gift for my dear wife,” 
he said, pompously. 

Devoted, notoriously and discreetly, to Mrs. Fletcher’s sister 
whom he visited in Louisville, he was grandiloquent about gifts 
for his wife. 

“Mrs. Alice hasn’t read Red Pottage t ” said Delia. (Of course 
she could sell those buckles at half price, but there must be some 
more profitable alternative. How could people waste time at 



TALK 


47 


euchre when there was a game like this to play? Belt buckle, 
belt buckle, who’s got the belt buckle?) 

“Hm! by Miss Cholmondeley,” the major was saying, “I am 
gratified that the habit of calling lady authors by their first 
names is dying out. Pilch Trenton asked me if I had read Mary 
Johnson’s To Have and To Hold. Now he is neither a close 
friend nor a kinsman. It’s discourteous to call her Mary,” added 
the major, severely. He sat down on Delia’s sofa to examine 
Red Pottage , to make sure it wasn’t too “morbid,” for his dear 
wife. 

Delia glanced out of the window at the country women, sta¬ 
tioned in surreys or buggies which had empty, sagging shafts, 
stationed there amid all the dust and sun and shouting. They 
stayed apart; they didn’t gather in groups to chat, as the town 
women always did. They were different. . . . 

Delia felt a ripple of excitement. It was clear, this ripple, that 
sort of waved across her throat. It invariably meant that she was 
having an idea. If those country women were different, rarely 
seeing one another, they would not mind imitating one another; 
they might even prefer it! 

She beckoned to Tessum. Quickly, silently, she directed him 
to clear the show window. On a strip of black velvet went the 
belt buckles and some chatelaine sets. On the backs of her 
old four-leaved clover labels she wrote prices. For those women 
were shy. They liked to “rubber” from a distance, and, seeing 
the prices, they would come closer to see what was priced, and 
if they came close enough they would come closer still. 

Delia watched their stares fix, and waver, and fix again. She 
watched them clamber out of their rigs. They were so nervous 



4 8 


TALK 


over showing their pathetic, graceless legs. Then they hovered 
on the sidewalk, before they came into the store. 

But one by one they did come into the store. 

And Delia, in turn, was sad and exultant. 

The country women saddened her. Their eyes were dulled from 
looking on the same scene too long. Their mouths drooped as 
if they were too tired ever to laugh. Their hands were cracked 
and harsh and reddened from dish water. They had made pitiful 
attempts at ornament—a breastpin, or a new bouquet on an old 
hat. They wanted something new and citified, but they were 
suspicious of being cheated. Their attitude was bitter hostility. 
And Delia could have cried over them. 

But she exulted over her own success. It was such fun to meet 
a problem and solve it! And she was glad those poor creatures 
had something that was pretty and useless. She was glad that 
her store was serving and being served! 

She giggled softly to herself. Mrs. Fletcher was browsing in the 
back of the store. What would Mrs. Fletcher say if she sang 
out gleefully (she felt like doing it!), “Belt buckle, belt buckle, 
they’ve got the belt buckle.” 

But Mrs. Fletcher had found Daudet’s Sappho , the book Doctor 
Vaughn had preached against the Sunday before. Delia rescued 
her just as Major Humphrey leaned curiously over her shoulder. 
He would have told it all over town. 

“Oh, Mrs. Fletcher,” said Delia, “that’s not the book you 
want! The publishers sent it by mistake. I’m so sorry.” 

But Mrs. Fletcher received it later, safe in the wrapper of 
Mrs. Rorer’s Cookery Book, and it was charged as stationery 
on the bill. 




TALK 


49 


4 

That night Delia told Page she had an idea. 

“My idea,” she said, “is to keep on with the store and make 
enough money to keep Aunt Mandy.” 

Page laughed. “That’s a Lulu. Where do I come in? No 
bachelor girls in our family!” 

Delia bent forward in that courtly little way of hers. “Page, 
I was stuck with a lot of belt buckles and made a show of them, 
and the country women bought every one.” 

“Selling gold bricks! Women have no moral sense. Were 
you warranted?” He pretended great fear. 

“They weren’t gold bricks. They were prettinesses for those 
poor work horses. They should spend their egg money on some¬ 
thing just for their very own selves! It broke my heart to look 
at them. All worn out . . . even the young ones. . . . And their 
hands ... I almost cried. It’s funny, I never seemed to notice 
them before like that. . . . Well, I wasn’t warranted for selling 
those belt buckles; I was complimented!” 

“Honey, your eyes look like that blue flame in the gas jet when 
they snap,” he said, fondly. 

“Never mind. I told Mr. Roger Gale about it and he said to 
make an asset out of a liability showed I had business genius. 
Now, Page, I can’t cook and I can run a store. If you were 
marrying anybody else you’d have the railroad work and start 
out in style. . . .” 

Page looked bored. “You’re talking like a child.” 

“But I want to keep on with the store. I’m crazy about it.” 

At that Page sat up straight on Mrs. Mollie’s parlor sofa. “I 



50 


TALK 


reckon that ’ll hold me! You don’t love me as much as that 
damned store. You’d rather wait on strangers than care for our 
home.” 

“That’s silly, I’m just talking horse sense.” 

“Here’s horse sense,” he countered. “Do you think anybody’d 
give a case to a man who either wouldn’t or couldn’t support his 
wife? What would people say?” 

She faced him, “We aren’t any man or any lawyer or any wife. 
It’d be different if everybody in Merville didn’t know how much 
you make, and about the K. and T. appointment, and that I can’t 
do housework and that I can run that store!” 

“You’re talking through your hat. If the Humphreys and the 
Gales and the Bird woods hadn’t shouted for you, nobody would 
have traded with a girl of your standing. But they wouldn’t 
shout for you if you went out to follow a hobby instead of 
starting a home.” 

“It isn’t a hobby!” 

“What is it?” That funny little tendon near his nose made its 
white stain. He was angry. 

“I don’t know,” Delia didn’t mind his anger. She was 
frightened because she wanted the store enough to fight Page for 
it. She was frightened at the conflict within herself. A part of 
her fought for the store and a part of her fought it. 

Page quieted, “Delia, don’t be one of these new women, yelling 
for your rights. You’re not the type. Think, honey! People’d 
think you were odd and stingy. They’d say I was henpecked. 
Can’t you just hear—” 

“The Ladies Book Club studied The Doll’s House last winter, 
and Mr. Bird wood said, in his speech to them, that Nora was 
right.” 






TALK 


5i 


“This isn’t a book; this is the real thing. I can’t have my 
wife insulted by rough country men and drummers who wouldn’t 
know you were a lady. I can’t understand. . . . You’ll have me. 
... If you loved me you’d want to cook for me! I want to 
work for you. I promise not to let you starve.*’ 

Delia looked up at him, “I can’t promise that,” she said, 
steadily. “It’s because I love you, dear, that I don’t want to cook 
for you. I know it sounds silly and lazy to make a fuss about 
doing your own work. Most girls could do it. I’m an exception. 
But I’m me and not what I ought to be. I ca-nn-ot cook. I 
know I can’t learn, because I hate everything about it. I’ve tried. 
I made some biscuits once and left them in the kitchen, and there 
never was a rat in that house again!” 

“It’s just like a woman to go off on a tangent! Darling, 
woman’s place is in the home. The country would go to ruin if 
she weren’t there, keeping us true to the best. Man’s world 
needs sure-enough women, not new women. Darling”—he edged 
to her end of the sofa—“I love your sweetness and charm and 
femininity, and you’d lose it all if you tried to be mannish.” 

“I’m afraid I’d lose you if I tried to be cookish! How’ll you 
like living on burnt chops ’n’ everything, and me looking be¬ 
draggled and worn . . . like . . .” She shivered (she didn’t say 
like those country women, to-day) . I know men!” She 

nodded sagely. 

For answer he kissed her. 

She tried to turn from him. “You’re trying to kiss the sense out 
of me!” 

“The nonsense, precious.” 

And later he said, “Shall we put the wedding off until I make 
enough money. . . .” 




52 


TALK 


But she wouldn’t let him finish his sentence, nor did he want 
to. They clung to each other. 

But the next night they argued again, and the next, and the 
next, angrily, waggishly, coldly. 

Finally Page gave in. 

He was a politician. He knew that Delia would not hold out 
against the town’s disapproval. Meanwhile there would be peace 
between them, and he was nobly sacrificing his point of view 
to hers. He would not have acknowledged a dim hope that the 
town might not disapprove. He would not have acknowledged a 
fear of Delia’s biscuits. 

4 


Then Bob Fletcher came to Delia with an offer to “take the 
store building off her hands.” The Merville News required larger 
quarters, and Bob hoped to settle it discreetly, before Squire 
Preston or Mr. Gale told Delia what the property was worth. 

“The store’s not for sale now.” 

Bob Fletcher’s news sense quickened. 

“Is Page . . ” 

“No, I’m going to keep on running it myself.” 

“You don’t say! Well, well!” And eagerly, “Do you mind if 
I put a note of that in the News?” 

“Oh, don’t say much. Just say the store will go on as usual.” 

He hurried away to catch the paper before it got to press. 

Delia was pleased that he had received her news merely as a 
news item. She was unaware that he would have received her 









TALK 


53 

murder in much the same manner. The Merville News had 
the largest circulation in southern Kentucky. 

The paper came to the livery stable at an opportune moment. 
A country man, who had bested Major Humphrey in a horse trade 
the year before, remarked that, with Goebel out of the way, he 
reckoned the double-barreled politician would go out of style. 

The major put his right hand in his coat pocket, but before 
he could pull a pistol Pilch Trenton and Squire Preston grabbed 
his arm and held it. 

Get out, you damned fool, before you’re taken out,” said 
the squire. 


And the country man departed. 


The tno felt foolish, the major especially so, for, while his 
countenance may have been menacing, his hand had sought for 
nothing but his pipe. He didn’t want the others to know that, 
and the others didn’t want to let him know they had discovered it! 

Therefore Lee Utley’s entrance with the Merville News was 


welcomed, and the curt and pregnant line about Delia gave them 
something to sputter about. 

The major turned on Squire Preston, “Didn’t you tell us that 
Delia Morehouse was just going to keep that little store until she 
had a husband to keep her! And I bought a book there yester¬ 
day! If she thinks this town’s going to stand for . . .” 

“Now, Delia ain’t one of these suffragettes. She’s just feeling 

her oats a little. All I have to do is just to tell her that this ain’t 
the thing.” 


“Why isn’t Page Reeves telling her. . . 

“Oh, he’s in love. . . . Love’s young dream,” mused the squire,, 
sentimentally. 



54 


TALK 


And that evening when Delia came in to Mrs. Molhe’s supper 
table there was silence. 

“Say, Miss Delia, they've been a-talkin' about you,” Leslie 
sang out. “Wanta hear what they said?” 

“Now little son, none of your jokes,” cooed his mother. “My 
boy has such playful ways! Some more meat, Doctor Emery? 

I prescribe it for you!” she coquetted. 

“No, thank you, ma'am,” the little doctor gloomily replied. 
According to a trade last from Charlie May, the little doctor 
had said that Delia was his ideal. 

“I’m telling you the truth,” insisted Leslie. 

“Little son, you know that dollar mamma promised you? 
Wouldn't you like to go down to Mayfield’s after supper and get 
a nice new lantern for your bicycle?” 

“Yes’m,” Leslie agreed. 

Delia began to worry. 

After her father’s death, when she came to Mrs. Mollie’s the 
guests had petted and comforted her; when she made the store 
go, they had applauded her. And, oh, she wanted applause! 

Suppose the town talked about her working in the store as a 
married woman? Mrs. Mollie, Doctor Emery, and Squire Pres¬ 
ton had been talking. Doctor Emery passed her the salt. Squire 
Preston handed her the butter plate, and Mrs. Mollie implored 
her to have some more water. But they seemed to be directing 
the conversation away from her, to be avoiding any mention of 
the store, in a way some one less intuitive than Delia would 
have missed. 

Doctor Emery and Squire Preston argued hotly about the kill¬ 
ing of William Goebel. The little doctor, being the best doctor 
in Merville, had the temerity to be a Republican. 




TALK 


55 


“Do you mean to insinuate, sir,” thundered the squire, “that 
it was a Democratic plot to kill their own leader? You say it 
was not a Republican plot.” 

“I believe it was the deed of some lunatic,” the little doctor 
affirmed. 

“I a S ree with you. Anyone who would be a Republican is a 
lunatic, sir.” The squire’s round face purpled. 

The little doctor had soft blond hair like the fuzz on a young 
chicken. It stood up belligerently. 

‘Til ask you to explain that remark, sir!” he glared. 

“Gentlemen, please!” wailed Mrs. Mollie. “Hasn’t there been 
enough strife and bloodshed over poor dear Mr. Goebel? Let 
us have peace. Now do have some of these fresh waffles.” 

The squire took some waffles. 

“I reckon she’s right, Doctor,” he sighed. “The state has 
had too much strife. The women are always right, God bless 
them, what w^ould we do without them . . . when they don’t try 
to ape the men,” he added at Delia. “Delia, I’d like to speak 
to you before Page comes.” 

Mrs. Mollie’s parlor opened for state occasions like Page’s 
courtship and Mr. Henderson’s burial, and now the squire “spoke” 
to Delia there. Its brown wall paper had gilt fleurs-de-lis and 
gray shrubs scampering over it. Hand-embroidered lambrequins 
covered every table and chair. If you moved a chair from its 
place, a bruise showed on the green carpet. 

The squire ushered Delia to the sofa and she occupied herself 
immediately with tracing the convulutions of a carved pineapple 
on the rosewood arm. 

“Now, Delia.” The squire marched up and down in front of her. 
He was a small, round man, his alpaca coat forever sticking out 



56 


TALK 


like the tail of a duck, because he would put his hands backward 
,in his pockets and flap his elbows when he got excited. <r Delia, 
I don’t like interfering with folks’ affairs. But your grandfather 
was my best friend and the best setter pup I ever had was 
picked out by your dad . . . and I reckon I was responsible for 
your setting up in that damned store. You ain’t got any kin . . . 
and what you’re thinking of doing ain’t the thing. . . . Delia, it 
can’t be done.” 

“But . . ” 

“You can’t escape the laws of God and man. He made woman 
to be man’s comfort and joy and to bear his children. And your 
husband ’ll be your life work when your lives are blended for a 
prosperous and happy journey through life.” 

“Why . . ” 

The squire shook his head, quickening his pace, “A woman 
should know little of the world except the orders of the Lord and 
the children He gives her to train for Him. Home is the altar 
for woman to decorate.” 

jj 

He wouldn’t let her interrupt his oration. “If Page couldn’t 
provide for you it would be different. When you went into the 
store as a financial necessity everybody admired you. Now your 
first and only duty is to make a home for Page.” 

“If . . ” 

“Folks ’ll call Page a shirker,” he went on, “and you’d be 
filling the position of some one who should be supporting a wife 
and family.” 

Then he paused for breath and Delia broke in, “Nobody wants 
to run my store.” 

“That’s not the point; it’s the principle of the thing.” 




TALK 


57 


“Let me explain,” she pleaded, “Page didn’t get that K. and T. 
appointment because of my family . . . and I just can’t cook,” 
she wailed. 

“Every woman can cook! It’s her beautiful and natural gift. 
Honey, Page is so much in love with you he can’t see straight. He 
can’t advise you. And now you’re going to exercise the feminine 
privilege of changing your mind.” He flapped his elbows 
conclusively. 

Delia jabbed her finger on the sharp point of that pineapple. 
She wanted to do what people thought she ought to do, but she 
had been working in the store for nearly six months. Weren’t 
people used to seeing her there? There . . . dear place . . . full 
of color and people coming and going . . . and the ripple of ex¬ 
citement that waved across her throat when she had an idea . . . 
meeting interesting problems and solving them. . . . How musty 
Mrs. Mollie’s parlor smelled! She wouldn’t have the windows 
opened for fear of fading the furniture. Musty. . . . Not like 
charred cocoa . . . but it reminded Delia of it. It made her 
feel a little sickish. 

Her blue eyes dimmed as she looked up at the squire. 

“I just fit in that store. I wouldn’t mind giving it up, though, 
if it weren’t for doing my own housework. Oh, why won’t you 
all understand!” 

The squire choked sympathetically. He had known that she 
would be persuaded. 

But Delia was not persuaded. She was afraid of what people 
were going to say. She knew she was right, but she was afraid 
of opposition. Her hope was that it would be weak and short 
lived. 



58 


TALK 


She looked down at the elaborate design she had been tracing 
with her finger. It was free of dust. Every day Mrs. Mollie 
went into its every comer with a dust rag. . . . 

“Squire, you know I love you, and I hate not to take your 
advice. But I just can’t. I know I mustn’t. I’m sorry.” 

He was surprised, and because she was not accepting his advice, 
he was indignant. 

“I’m sorry, too,” he said stiffly, and waddled out of the room. 

And then Page came with a message from his mother. She 
wanted to “speak” to Delia. 

After echoing the squire Mrs. Reeves produced one of Mr. 
West’s editorials for Delia to see. No young girl could dis¬ 
regard his opinion, and there it was in black and white. Mr. 
West edited the American Princess, and Mrs. Reeves could say 
that every recipe in his magazine was not only practical but de¬ 
licious. She had always had a little trouble with her salad in 
aspic until she took a hint she found in his columns. 

“Now just read that, Delia!” 

And Delia read: 

A canvass made by the American Princess proves the growing retirement 
of women from the business world. Railroads, banking houses, and com¬ 
mercial firms all over the country are relieving women from positions. 
Women have shown themselves naturally incompetent. They were never 
trained for business and they lack its essential requirements. Women can¬ 
not stand the necessary physical strain; oculists and neurologists state the 
typewriter to be ruinous to the eyesight and back nerves of girls and 
women. Theirs has been an unnatural position. God made women un¬ 
fitted for the rougher life planned out for men and every step they take 
must prove this. Man does not stand in her path; she stands in her own 
path. 

Pending matrimonial engagements have been a pronounced cause. And 
the merchant felt he could not properly ask his female secretary to remain 
after hours; women cannot go on a journey at an hour’s notice, nor can 
they travel alone. Female reporters cannot be sent on night assignments; 
and employers object to being continually aware of the social amenities. 



TALK 


59 


This withdrawal from business is simply a return from false to normal 
conditions. No woman was intended for the commercial atmosphere which 
is distasteful to the most sensitive feminine mind and fine temperament. 
The vast majority of women in business have no taste for it, and the 
results show in rest cures and sanitariums. 

But like all movements it has worked its good on the home. We move in 
a circle, and toward first principles again. A country-born man may live 
in the city for years, but the longing for the smell of the land comes back to 
him, and he generally winds up amid the trees and flowers. 

And so will women return to their natural places in the home. 

Delia’s eyes followed these words, but they saw Mrs. Reeves, 
sitting in her best bird’s-eye maple rocker, leaning lightly against 
a tasselated sofa cushion which Page had adjusted before he 
tactfully left the two of them together. They saw her curled 
brown pompadour drawn back from a forehead untouched by 
time. Unclouded were her sand-gray eyes, shielded prettily by 
thick, short brown lashes. The sleeves of her plaid silk waist 
were of that moment’s fashion; her belt never slid from its proper 
place. In her hands she held a bit of hardanger embroidery, 
doing the difficult work with ease. 

She was a compact, perfect little figure, and suddenly, amaz¬ 
ingly, Delia hated her. 

What right had she to dictate to Delia? What right had she 
to order Delia’s life? What was she? What could she ever 
be to Delia? They were alien to each other, and yet for the 
rest of their lives they must be intimates. They had nothing in 
common; they thought of nothing in the same way. There was 
no tie of blood or tastes, and yet they must share each other’s 
lives because Faltha Reeves happened to be Page’s mother. 
Delia loved Page, but that brought no love for this strange 
woman, who sat there, so certainly, so complacently, so smugly, 
ordering her destiny. 

Those mother-in-law jokes in the funny papers had truth be- 



6o 


TALK 


hind their vulgarity and violence. The relationship unfounded 
on friendship was senseless. And there was no basis for friend¬ 
ship between Delia and Mrs. Reeves. Delia hated Mrs. Reeves. 

“And so will women return to their natural places in the 
home.” 

The familiar ring of that last sentence brought Delia to herself, 
a self shocked by her own thoughts. She must not hate Page’s 
mother! It was wrong, and she, Delia Morehouse, was turning 
sour, strong-minded, like those ugly new women to be found 
also in the funny papers! 

So stormy was she inside that she was surprised when Mrs. 
Reeves tucked her needle into the linen, took off her tiny gold 
thimble, and said with an air of calm triumph: 

“You see what Mr. West says!” 

So thankful was Delia that Mrs. Reeves hadn’t felt her thoughts 
(those thoughts were intense enough to have had impetus of their 
own) that she wanted to be as sweet as she could be, especially 
since she owed to Mrs. Reeves a strength which was bom of 
her opposition. 

“I reckon Mr. West’s right,” said Delia, sagely, “about women 
and business and the home and everything. But he doesn’t know 
anything about me, now does he? I just don’t want to do my 
own work, because I would make such a mess of it. You do it 
so gracefully, Mrs. Reeves, it must be hard for you to 
realize. . . .” 

Mrs. Reeves smiled graciously. 

“Delia, I had rather not say this, but I am forced to. You 
seem to have forgotten that Page is sacrificing his career, for you. 
You could sacrifice your, shall I call it a career? for him!” 

That stung. 



TALK 


61 


“He can go into politics, now Goebel’s dead,” Delia countered. 

That’s uncertain. The railroad work would have been a 
certainty.” 

Mrs. Reeves was mean, but the meaner she was, the stronger 
she made Delia. Nobody could get her to do anything by blaming 
her for something which was not her fault. 

And Page came in as Delia said, “Well, if I’ve ruined Page’s 
career, he can break our engagement and get the railroad work!” 

Page looked from one to the other. 

Mrs. Reeves leaned forward and her sofa cushion dropped on 
the carpet. She looked at it and Page. 

Page, who was tired of picking up sofa cushions, picked it up. 

“Mamma, I won’t have you throwing that up to Delia!” And 
to Delia, “Come, honey, it’s time I took you home.” 

Good-night, Mrs. Reeves. You are sweet to bother with me. 
I’m so sorry we can’t agree.” Delia kissed Mrs. Reeves on her 
smooth, cool cheek. 

Although Delia disliked Mrs. Reeves, she wanted Mrs. Reeves 
to like her. She had a passion for being liked. 

After they left, Mrs. Reeves mused darkly on how you raise 
a son and sacrifice your life for him, and then a girl comes along 
and he takes her side. For the first time, Faltha Reeves wished 
that Page had been a daughter. A daughter never really leaves 
her mother. 

However, when Mrs. Humphrey suggested that it might be 
nice for the young couple to live with her, Faltha said, “I feel 
just as if Delia were my own daughter and I want to always feel 
that way. But I don’t believe in any two women living under 
one roof. Even mother and daughter are bound to disagree.” 

Mrs. Humphrey had a daughter. 



6z 


TALK 


* 

Public opinion was definitely though somewhat passively 
against Delia. Because she had no relatives, old friends tried to 
advise her, and she thought that since they said so much to her 
they must say more about her. She thought she was the subject 
of every conversation. 

She was not. 

Mrs. Fletcher’s sister was visiting in Merville, and the town, 
chuckling, watched how adroitly Major Humphrey managed his 
affair with her. Caught, he would have been a “scoundrel”; 
uncaught, he was a “sly dog.” And Kentucky was almost in civil 
war over the Goebel case. Men carried arms. Sentiment was at 
gunpowder heat. In Tisdale the card clubs had been suspended 
because even the women could not gather peaceably. Then there 
was interest in Mr. Bryan’s nomination, and the Boer War, and 
trouble in the Philippines. But in spite of all these topics there 
was time to mention Delia. 

Spring came early and warm, and the town burst into sound 
and color. You could hear, “Ting-ting-ting—ggg,” from the 
blacksmiths’ shops. The trees along the brick sidewalks brought 
forth reddish buds, and between the bricks tiny shoots of grass 
pushed out. 

Gay spring raiment turned the women into butterflies rustling 
around the square. A little group in front of Horne’s drygoods 
store, slate-gray lawn, poppy red, and pink piquet, hovered 
together, talking. Slate-gray would fly over to Scanlon’s grocery, 
and there, examining turnip greens and radishes on the rack out¬ 
side, were beige silk, and crushed-strawberry challie, talking. 




TALK 


63 


Girls in high victorias, girls in high traps, drove around the 
square, stopping on corners to talk to swains who signaled them. 
Older ladies, shielding fair complexions behind carriage parasols, 
passed, peered to see what swain brought ice-cream sodas to what 
trap, saw and talked. 

And in chairs tilted on the sidewalk the elders at the livery 
stable told how Mr. Dooley challenged Molly Donahue’s vote, 
“On th’ ground that the voter is iv unsound mind. Anny woman 
is that votes!” 

This inspired Pilch Trenton to say: “What happens to love in 
a cottage when the loved one toils in a bookstore? I reckon 
cupid flies the coop.” 

“Suppose all our wives desert the home,” said the squire, who 
had none, “who’ll be there to see what time we come home in the 
mornings?” 

“That reminds me,” began Major Humphrey, “have you heard 
about the man who didn’t come home? . . . er, as I was saying, 
those trust magnates ...” 

He shifted his conversation because Mr. Birdwood stopped to 
order a hack for his wife to catch the Louisville train. Conver¬ 
sation shifted from impropriety when Mr. Birdwood came along. 
He was a tall, spare man with sparse sandy hair and amber eyes 
which seemed to have light back of them. He was a great orator, 
continually frustrated by his fine intellect and his rigorous moral 
sense. 

After he left, the major continued his anecdote. 

At Mayfield’s drugstore the young boys “swopped extras” for 
the high-school dance three months hence, and gazed on twelve- 
year-old Evelyn Humphrey, who held her picture hat with one 
braceleted arm, and her diaphanous skirts with the other. But 



6 4 


TALK 


the wind billowed her skirts into the pretty half of a pink balloon. 
Tearful, she walked sidewise, conscious of ten young male eyes 
behind Mayfield’s big glass window. 

“Rubber neck!” yelled Jim Aiken. 

“Sell your rubber to a bicycle factory,” growled Billy Fletcher. 
He had sent little Evelyn a valentine that cost a dollar and a 
half. And to make them turn their eyes from her, he said, “Say, 
reckon Miss Delia Morehouse’s going to wear bloomers?” 

“Maybe she’ll wear a tie and a collar like a man, and none of 
the men ’ll take off their hats to her,” added young Gale, with 
interest. 

“Aw, that’s silly! A gentleman takes off his hat to a lady if 
she’s got nothing on . . . ” 

“Aw, Leslie Henderson! What I know about you-ou. Say, 
lookit this ‘Omono’ advertisement. It’s red hot from the gun.” 

And Delia exaggerated her part in these conversations, and 
smarted over it. To think of her being talked about! It was 
unfair, because they kept calling her a suffragette or a new 
woman, and she was neither. Why wouldn’t they simply take her 
for a girl who could run a store and could not cook? For she 
longed to stand well with her world! Now, when she passed the 
livery stable, she felt as uncomfortable and conscious as if her 
petticoat were showing. And when Mrs. Humphrey passed with¬ 
out speaking, she worried, although she knew that Mrs. 
Humphrey was near-sighted. She tried to keep from hearing, 
what was said about her, and then she tried to find it out. 

Page avoided the subject. His air of noble patience was 
founded on nothing less firm than the Delia-made biscuits, which 
had rid the Morehouse cottage of rats. By night he dreamed 
of being pelted with them, by day he forgot his dream and remem- 



TALK 


65 


bered his nobility. His mother, forever coolly cordial, kept aloof 
from Delia. But whenever Delia thought of her, she strengthened 
and thought: 

“Oh, everybody’ll get used to my staying in the store.” 

And then when she needed more strength she got it. She got 
religious about the store, and saw herself as a vague mixture of 
Jeanne d’Arc and Susan B. Anthony. 

She had always gone to church and prayed at night and in a 
thunderstorm, but this exaltation was of a piece with her con¬ 
version. For Delia, with all her friends, had been converted when 
Doctor Manston, the evangelist, swept Merville’s femininity off its 
feet and into his tally-ho or his English cart, which he drove with 
horses harnessed tandem. Every morning he took out a lovely 
sinner who would “get religion” at the afternoon service. He 
was so handsome that dancing and cards and frivolity were 
renounced for him. Of course they were resumed when he left. 

Because it was foreign to her nature, Delia never forgot his 
favorite text, “Blessed be the Lord, my strength, which teacheth 
my hands to war, and my fingers to fight.” Now she prayed it 
and hypnotized herself with it. She mixed it with her innate 
superstitions. Every morning she repeated it three times and 
knocked on wood in unison. 

This exaltation was hard on Page. He was lonely in Delia’s 
rarefied atmosphere. Then the Merville News announced Mr. 
Delia Morehouse’s approaching wedding to Miss Page Reeves. 
And every time he passed Les Henderson, Les said, “Cluck, 
cluck, cluck—cluck, cluck, cluck,” adding, “Henpecked!” lest he 
miss the implication. 

Page was being laughed at, and his limelight was but a feeble 
and disagreeable reflection of Delia’s. He felt the need to assert 




66 


TALK 


his manhood, and he thought: “I’ll show ’em. Just give me a 
chancel” 



And his chance came. 

He was waiting at the store for Delia to close up for the day. 
He resented her delay about it. He thought, “Why doesn’t she 
kiss the damned books!” she handled them so tenderly. 

And she looked very crisp and pretty in her white shirtwaist 
and skirt, with the twilight making deep-blue shadows on her 
silvery blond hair. Even her fervent air was becoming. 

Page tried to help, and mixed the bibles with the dictionaries. 
Wandering about, useless, miserable, he hit his finger at the cut- 
glass bowl full of contributions to the Goebel Monument. It 
went, “Pling-ing-ng.” 

“Don’t break that bowl,” cautioned Delia. “Isn’t it wonderful 
how much people have given!” 

The telephone rang for Page. 

There was a Bryan meeting at the Opera House. The sched¬ 
uled speaker was stranded in an automobile between Tisdale and 
Merville. The committee hoped that Page would help them out. 

Page was delighted. 

“Delia, can you get Les Henderson to take you home? They 
want me to speak at the Opera House.” Page cleared his throat 
importantly. 

“I reckon so.” Delia wondered why Mrs. Birdwood hadn’t 
bought Flute and Violin after looking at it so long. “That’s fine, 
Page,” she added. 



TALK 


67 


“Wouldn’t you like to come and hear me?” He was wistful 
from the door. 

“Oh, I’ve got to fix these things. Anyway, people would think 
it was funny. Ladies don’t go to political meetings.” 

She didn’t care whether he spoke or not. His affairs were of 
no importance! He was just a figurehead. Well, he’d show her 
and everybody what he was. He’d make a speech that would 
echo over the state. He’d make the biggest speech ever made in 
Merville. 

This opportunity, coming when his spirits were at lowest ebb, 
flooded them into excitement. He was almost intoxicated with 
himself. He strutted across the square, head up, as if he’d had 
champagne. And strutting, he composed his speech, a speech 
made of his disappointment, his envy, his need, and his intoxi¬ 
cation. 

It had to be sensational. Bryan . . . Kentucky . . . Goebel 
. . . Yah! Goebel was the whole show, he was. Lucky for 
the rest of them that he was dead. Page hadn’t heard much talk 
lately; he hadn’t been loafing around. People were such smart 
alecks. Les Henderson . . . Cluck, cluck, cluck. Henpecked? 
He’d show ’em. And he reckoned everybody felt as he did about 
Goebel. Nobody had the nerve to say it. Well, he had the nerve. 
Miss Page Reeves! Sissy? He’d show ’em whether he was a 
sissy. He’d make a grandstand play that would be talked about 
all over the state of Kentucky. He burned with righteousness. 
He was going to do his political duty! He was going to tell the 
truth. Truth hadn’t mattered when Goebel was alive, hogging it, 
letting nobody have a show! 

The Opera House was crowded. Men smoked and chewed and 
spit and stamped their feet. Catcalls and showers of peanut 



68 


TALK 


shells came from the gallery. The gas jets, turned too high, 
spewed and smelled. 

The stage was set with woodland scenery. In front of the 
brook, the trees, and the old mill dam, chairs were placed semi- 
circularly, and occupied by Squire Preston, Major Humphrey, 
and all the Prince Albert coats in town. Even Mr. Bird wood, sent 
to Coventry for being a gold bug in the free-silver fight, was 
among them. He was included to symbolize the hope of reunion 
in Kentucky. 

Major Humphrey introduced Page. He said the speaker for 
the evening, in his eagerness to reach them, had “with vaulting 
ambition overleaped himself.” He had trusted an automobile. 
He told how Page’s father had been one of Morgan’s raiders, the 
finest heritage a man could have. And now Page was one of the 
hopes of the party. 

Page’s nostrils distended in his happiness. 

He was good-looking, he had a fine voice, the crowd liked him. 
Between him and them swelled a wave of harmony, a definite 
flow. He had them. And they felt his excitement, his intoxi¬ 
cation. 

“Defeat,” he began, “has added to Mr. Bryan’s fame; it has 
not diminished it.” On “fame” his voice soared, raising him 
bodily to tiptoe. As he approached his period, with his voice, he 
bent gradually, until he almost knelt. 

“Bryan, the embodiment of anti-imperialism and anti-trust, is 
the logical leader of the forces that will mass under the standards 
of Democracy. The breath of calumny has never fouled the 
record of his public life. Bryan’s integrity is his shibboleth. 
The Republicans seem to believe that if the rich are taken care 
of, a little of the prosperity can leak through to the needy. Well, 



TALK 


69 


Mr. Bryan doesn’t seem to think so. He’s for the full dinner pail. 
The trust magnates, purse proud, blood fed, have challenged 
Democracy. Let us hit back!” 

“Hear! Hear!” 

“Shoot the shoots!” 

The crowd was one with him. Behind him, the semicircle 
beamed. 

We have had a battle between decency and dishonor within 
the Democratic ranks. With two Governors and an absconding 
secretary of state accused of murder, Kentucky politics is hell. 
Our fair state has had a surfeit of political sulphur and brim¬ 
stone. Why, in the train the other day, a window sash fell with 
a loud report. A dudish drummer scuttled under his seat. ‘Look 
out, gentlemen,’ he shouted, ‘we’re in Kentucky.’ In Kentucky 
every loud report is a gun. Now, friends, that’s bad. What’s 
the cause of this condition? Who’s the cause of this condition?” 

The crowd, stilled, sat on the edge of tneir seats. A man 
sneezed loud like a billy-goat. Gladly, everyone laughed. But 
Major Humphrey rubbed his nose anxiously and tried to get 
Page’s eye. Squire Preston began to flap his elbows. 

“Now I’ve been out of the political ring lately, I’ve been in 
the engagement ring!” 

Shouts, cheers, catcalls, came from the gallery. 

“And I’ve been thinking: I think nobody but God Almighty 
and the Republican leaders know how many votes Mr. Taylor 
received from this, our sovereign state. I think a Republican 
shot Mr. Goebel. I think it was a Republican plot. But, gentle¬ 
men, one faction can be rotten and another putrid! There has 
been a campaign of corruption and character assassination and 
murder. And why? The late Mr. William Goebel and his allies 



70 


TALK 


have nearly ruined the state of Kentucky. And why? Because 
the late Mr. William Goebel had a wolfish appetite for office. He 
didn’t love his state, he scorned his party. He thrust #he state 
into bayonet rule. Had he lived he might have been hanged for 
treason. Gentlemen, I think the day was a lucky day for the 
state, a lucky day for the Democratic party, when Mr. William 
Goebel ...” he paused for his climax. The house was death- 
still . . . “when Mr. William Goebel was shot.” 

The house oom-mmed with stillness. Squire Preston whispered, 
“The damned fool! The hell damned fool!” 

And hell broke loose. The crowd scrambled to its feet and 
rushed forward, slamming down seats, jumping on them. Some¬ 
body pulled out a gun and shot, hitting an empty chair in a box. 
Somebody in the gallery pointed a menacing finger and yelled, 
“You dirty anarchist!” Every hand was on every hip pocket and 
some on two. A shot struck the center gas jet, and the flame 
flared and died. Men shouted, making queer guttural sounds, as 
they struggled toward the stage. 

Page stood there with a puzzled expression on his face. He 
looked as though he were about to laugh. Bang-g-g-pang! A 
bullet pierced the old mill dam. A man jumped on the stage from 
the orchestra pit and whimpered when he saw his gun was empty. 

There was a movement from the Prince Albert row. 

Mr. Birdwood stood in front of Page. His spare frame towered. 
His great voice boomed over the opera house. 

“You God-damned fools!” he shouted. “Go to your homes!” 

With the weight of Washington’s famous profanity, Mr. Bird- 
wood held them for a second. He saw his advantage. He seized 
the empty gun from its whimpering owner and held it cocked in 
his hand. 




TALK 


7i 


“Right about face. I’ll shoot the first man whose face I see. 
March! We’ve had enough bloodshed in this state.” 

The crowd turned, paused, and shuffled out. The man who 
sneezed like a billy-goat sneezed again. Someone laughed. 

Page sat down in a chair. Confused notions of this or that 
he could or should have done whirled through his brain. 

“Thanks, Mr. Birdwood,” he said, huskily. 

Mr. Birdwood put the pistol down on the table and poured 
himself a glass of water. 

Squire Preston was wiping his eyes. 

The major strode toward Page, shook a long finger, and 
sputtered: 

“Let the boy alone,” said Mr. Birdwood. “He’s got himself 
into a world of trouble. Why, you young fool, you’ll lose out 
with the Republicans because you accused them of murdering 
Goebel, and you’ll lose out with the Democrats because you’ve 
justified the murder of their leader. Right or wrong, the man’s 
dead.” 

4 

The town was bewildered. “What did Page Reeves mean? 
To talk about a dead man like that!” Nobody understood it, 
and his mother especially resented it. At the Afternoon Euchre 
Club, her entrance created a hush. Then Mrs. Humphrey pro¬ 
tested violently that dear Faltha’s hat was so becoming, and that 
it was going to rain; and Mrs. Aiken protested simultaneously 
and with equal violence that this drought was going to ruin the 
crops. Whereupon Mrs. Reeves suggested that if it didn’t get 
cooler it might get warmer, but there was always a chance of the 



72 


TALK 


weather remaining as it was. If they wanted to talk about her 
son, in turn, she could make them feel like a parcel of fools, but 
she resented the effort. She blamed Delia for it. Delia s influ¬ 
ence was ruining Page. 

Delia was puzzled and worried and sorry, but she didn’t 
mention his speech until he did. When he said he didn’t think 
they’d take the truth like that, she said she knew and that it 
was too bad. Her own affairs were trifling beside this masculine 
problem: would the ghost of Mr. Goebel haunt Page’s legal as 
well as his political career? 

Then Mr. Birdwood found Page some work. A northern 
capitalist was buying land for an asphalt mine. Mr. Birdwood 
asked Page to search the title. Mr. Gale, following suit, had 
Page assign a small mortgage for the bank. 

Secretly, Delia decided that it was mighty lucky she had the 
store now, but the town decided otherwise. Since Page had 
affronted public opinion, it was up to Delia to appease it, and 
they talked about and to her, more seriously than before. 

Mr. Birdwood confided that while he was convinced of his 
rightness on the gold question, he had lost so many friends by it 
that sometimes he questioned its worth. He admired Delia’s 
courage, he admired Miss Anthony’s courage, although her objec¬ 
tive, female suffrage, was impossible under the present social and 
political system. Miss Anthony had retired, a disappointed 
woman, her cause unchanged. He warned Delia not to oppose 
the opinions of her friends when she could not even be certain of 
being right. Surely she agreed that the home was the foundation 
of civilization. 

Mrs. Gale, before her marriage, had taught music in a ladies’ 
seminary. She asked Delia if she couldn’t compromise. 



TALK 


73 


“I keep up my music,” she said, “I practice every morning 
after I get the children off to school. Of course, Mr. Gale would 
have a fit if I dreamed of teaching again!” 

“I couldn’t run a store at home,” said Delia, “and you keep a 
cook and a house girl and a coachman. Anyway, people would 
understand more about music. That’s an art. Nobody can 
understand why I’d rather work in a store than in a kitchen. 
But when a customer comes in, and I stay quiet until he lights 
on something he likes, I can’t explain ... I don’t enjoy selling 
anybody anything he doesn’t want, but he might not know what 
he wants until I convince him. You know that humming, getting- 
ready-to-unwind feeling that you have when you sit down at the 
piano. ...” 

Mrs. Gale knew. “You poor child!” she said. 

But Delia was not a bom rebel. How could she be right and 
everybody else be wrong? Sometimes she wondered if it weren’t 
harder to be considered wrong than to be wrong. Then she would 
repeat Doctor Manston’s text and knock on wood. 

Eudora Dexter told her she was silly to care what people said. 
She took Delia aside at the Fletchers’ euchre party. 

“Honey, I wish you’d order ‘Queenie Was There with Her Hair 
in a Braid,’ for me.” 

“That’s an awfully naughty song,” protested Delia. “You’ll 
have to play it with the windows down.” 

“Not on your tintype. I don’t care what people say. It’s a 
funny song. Now write it down in your little tablet.” 

Delia wore a little ivory tablet on her chatelaine. She often 
needed it at parties. 

“Don’t you care at all what people say?” 

“Not at all,” said Eudora. “Talk can’t hurt you! Now you’re 




74 


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just worrying yourself to death because you want to keep on 
working at that store, why I can’t see; but that’s your business. 
If you want to do it, what’s the difference if people are talking 
their heads off about you?” 

“Are they?” asked Delia, anxiously. 

“I should smile I But you’re silly to care.” 

That was Eudora. She showed where not caring landed you. 
Mrs. Reeves wouldn’t receive her and those who would agreed 
that she was awfully fast. People said the men might like her, 
but they had no respect for her, they wouldn’t marry her. Page 
had rushed Eudora, but he was marrying Delia. 

And Delia cared terribly. 

But the town wits found her irresistible. 

Pilch Trenton declared that if Delia Morehouse had an organ 
it wouldn’t play “Home, Sweet Home.” Page took a gun down 
to the News when it came out with, “We all know a nymph du 
pave, but what is a nymph du store?” Bob Fletcher apologized 
and the News let Delia alone thereafter. 

Major Humphrey wondered to Mrs. Birdwood how long that 
fool Page Reeves was going to wait before he asserted his 
authority. Gentle Mrs. Birdwood feared that no gentleman could 
realize the number of household vexations. Some women, she 
said, had no knack for managing them. Whereupon the major 
guffawed as he quoted David Harum, “If a dog didn’t have fleas, 
he wouldn’t know he was a dog.” But he guffawed alone. Mrs. 
Birdwood told Mr. Birdwood afterward that she couldn’t figure 
where such a coarse strain entered the Humphrey family. 

Beside the major’s natural solicitude for the home in general 
was his particular solicitude for his future son-in-law. Charlie 
May and Bob Fletcher were secretly engaged, and Bob Fletcher 



TALK 


75 


wanted Webster’s Bookstore building for the News. The major 
told Bob he thought he could “fix Delia.” It was not only a 
pleasure to do something for Bob, but a duty to discourage her. 

The major happened to dominate the school board, and the 
school-book trade was important to Delia. It was dependable 
and lucrative. And the Merville schools had voted to join a co¬ 
operative project at Richmond, which was to publish Southern 
textbooks free from prejudice on matters pertaining to the Civil 
War. 

Delia expected the fall order list, but instead Major Humphrey 
came in the store with a grave and pompous air. He said the 
schools must stand for ideals, and the sanctity of home duties 
was a first principle. The school board was obligated to oppose 
actively the modern craze for neglecting the home. Therefore 
they would order text-books directly from Richmond. 

Delia felt a buzzing in her ears. It was all anger in which, for 
once, there were no fears. Her head lifted and her skin went 
scarlet. She looked at him steadily. She thought: “You old 
hypocrite. You want to protect the home, especially your home. 
Everybody but Mis’ Alice knows how you’re carrying on with 
Mrs. Fletcher’s sister in Louisville. You want the home to be a 
cloak for your goings-on! ” 

But so innate was her self-control that her lips could not have 
uttered these words, though the rising inflection with which she 
said, “Good morning, Major Humphrey,” was unmistakable. 

The major was impressed. He told Pilch Trenton that Delia 
Morehouse could look “real pretty” when she was mad. 

Delia was mad. After he left she walked up and down back of 
the counter. She didn’t say her text; she didn’t need it. 

She wouldn’t stand for this, she decided. She would leave 



76 


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Merville, if it stood for boycott, blackmail. As for Page, well if 
he cared he could follow. There wasn’t much future there for 
him. 

She grabbed the Bookman’s Weekly. There was one adver¬ 
tisement for a woman: “Wanted, a lady bookkeeper. Experi¬ 
enced. Double-entry bookkeeping. The Hendrix Company, 
Cleveland.” Delia didn’t know double-entry bookkeeping. She 
always noted in an old exercise book who bought what, and the 
price. She wasn’t trained to do anything. She had a knack for 
running that store in that town, whose wants she understood. 
Why couldn’t they let her do it? Why did anybody care as long 
as they could buy what they wanted? Why couldn’t they see her 
as she saw herself? In her own eyes she was just a. girl who 
could sell things, happily. Down on the home? Why, she had 
tried to make her store homelike. 

She tucked in a corner of that purple brocade. Wouldn’t a few 
purple pillows to match it look nice on the sofa! Dear place. 
It was so bright, so cheery. She loved it, with its new-leather 
smell, with its atmosphere of activity and change, with its atmos¬ 
phere to her, even of glamor and adventure. 

Some day, when there was a child, perhaps she would have to 
leave it. By that time Page would be able to afford a servant. 
Anyway, Aunt Mandy was wonderful with children. . . . She 
needn’t think so far ahead ... it was indelicate. . . . 

And in the meantime if Merville didn’t like her decision it 
could lump it. By the time she returned from her honeymoon at 
the Springs (the wedding was only three weeks off) people would 
forget their opposition and take her and her affairs for granted. 
There would be some newer sensation to talk about. 

She would get along without the school-book trade. She’d 



TALK 


77 


show the men. She’d tempt their wives. Prices should cut no 
ice. Mrs. Alice Humphrey was mighty extravagant . . . Delia 
would carry hand-painted tally cards, and elaborate german 
favors, and real lace collars. She’d find out about those new 
labor-saving devices that Squire Preston said would ruin the 
home. If the men wanted war, she’d give them war! 

That night she was awakened by the familiar tinkling rumble 
of a serenade. Beneath her window, a banjo and one of those 
harmonicas that she had sold, accompanied Bob Fletcher’s throaty 
tenor. He sang: 

“ ‘Just some little birds to warble, 

In the trees the whole day through; 

Just the laugh of happy children, 

A few friends whose hearts are true. 

“ ‘Climbing vines beside the window 
And a path where dewdrops kiss, 

And your arm, dear love, around me— 

Nothing more I ask than this.’ ” 

Instead of scrambling into her clothes and making a pitcher of 
lemonade for the serenaders, Delia opened her window and 
slammed it down with a bang. 

Charlie May Humphrey sauntered into the store the next 
morning. “Delia, why did you insult those boys last night,” she 
began. “They didn’t mean anything personal by that song! 
They were complimenting you. They came over to my house 
from yours. You know Bob Fletcher and I are engaged.” 

The two girls kissed each other, and after the admiration of 
the solitaire and the discussion of the color scheme for the wed¬ 
ding, Charlie May said: 

“Now, honey, I want to talk to you. Don’t bristle. I’m not 
going to land on you. Everybody’s just sort of irritated because 




78 


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they’ve lowered themselves to give advice and you haven’t taken 
it. I wouldn’t advise you for anything, but I just want to remind 
you of all you’re going to miss. The new bicycle club meets 
in the afternoon, and there’s the morning whist club. You have 
to keep in. It doesn’t do to drop out. And when you don’t 
have to, isn’t it kinda common to wait on saloon-keepers’ wives 
and people like that? Now don’t get uppity!” 

But Delia did get “uppity.” “I am so glad you are not going 
to advise me,” said she. 

She was snappily on the defensive these days. And whenever 
she saw a conversation she thought it was about her. She took 
every remark about “woman” to be a reflection upon herself. 

On Sunday Doctor Vaughn preached about Martha and Mary, 
and Delia tore her lace handkerchief into strips. Afterward she 
realized that he had been out of town for a month and knew 
nothing about her affairs. 

Then Leslie Henderson mailed her a cartoon of the bloomer 
girl, that ancient sensation which had been revived by a current 
playlet. Mrs. Mollie apologized for his “playfulness,” and added 
a tearful appeal in the name of Southern womanhood and the 
traditions of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and the 
United Daughters of the Confederacy. Mrs. Mollie said that 
while she had to take paying guests, she never left her home 
except to go to market or to go calling, to go to church or to a 
very occasional euchre party. 

“Nobody could criticize you for that,” said Delia, sweetly. 

Mrs. Mollie patted Delia’s hand, “Oh, my dear,” she said, “I 
wish I could say the same of you.” 

“You could, if you lied like I did,” said Delia. 

She went upstairs and cringed over having been mean to Mrs. 



TALK 


79 


Mollie, who had had so much trouble. She, Delia, who longed 
to be loved, was making everybody hate her. How she snapped 
at people! And cringed about it afterward. She examined her 
face in the mirror. She was afraid she was going to get a sour 
expression, old-maidish, or strong minded, which was worse. She 
made up her mind to give her hair fifty brush-strokes every night. 
And she asked Page if he thought it would be all right for her 
to have a blue dress now, although she was still in half mourning. 
Blue was more becoming than lavender. Before he replied she 
answered herself. There was no use giving people something else 
to criticize, although she put it differently to Page. 

Page was rather subdued and very affectionate. He was 
grateful to Delia for not nagging him about his Goebel speech. 
His mother nagged him and he nagged himself. 

4f 

And then, on the day after April fool’s, Delia found on her 
store window a giant replica of that bloomer-girl cartoon. It 
was engraved roughly on the glass. And so few vivid strokes sug¬ 
gested Delia’s undulating pompadour, her tip-tilted nose, her 
slanting eyes, and her bowed legs, those legs which were Delia’s 
intense and secret shame! Who could have seen them but Les 
Henderson the day he tripped her with a rope? He must have 
done this with one of his mother’s enormous family diamonds. 

Delia almost sobbed with rage. She called Tessum five times 
before she remembered that she had given him the day off. She 
was furious at him for not being there. She got water and soap 



8 o 


TALK 


and scrubbed at the thing in vain. It swaggered, hatefully, 
shadowing the store, vulgarizing it. 

All day Delia, from inside, watched people stare and stop and 
snigger. The cartoon focused the opinion of the town. It was 
cleverly done. The resemblance was unmistakable. She heard 
Pilch Trenton say gravely, as if observing a new portrait: “An 
excellent likeness! So much character in it.” Peals of delight 
echoed from the livery stable next door. Delia closed her door, 
lest she hear any more of their jokes. 

A sense of panic and of shame melted her sustaining fury. She 
felt as if, naked, she were being pilloried before the whole town. 
Her sense of proportion was gone. 

And all day her two selves battled. She forgot Les Hender¬ 
son’s responsibility for that swaggering bloomer girl. As the 
sun spirtled down upon the glass, bringing the drawing into 
glittering relief, it seemed to be a projection of the bookstore 
Delia, ugly, strong-minded and bow-legged. But the pretty busy 
Delia in crisp white whispered that jokes were soon forgotten, 
that talk shifted and passed and changed, and that she would 
never belong anywhere as she belonged just there. 

A third self whispered, too—a self that wore lavender mull with 
ruffles, one of her trousseau dresses, Page’s favorite. It reminded 
her of how mean she had been to Mrs. Mollie, who had had so 
much trouble; of how nobody had said a nice thing to her for 
weeks. Maybe nobody loved her any more. Maybe she had 
become a sour, strong-minded old maid. Maybe Page’s faith¬ 
fulness was only duty. It would be fine to sacrifice herself for 
Page. . . . Mrs. Reeves had said she should, after Page had 
sacrificed himself for her! How could she have igno r ed that, just 
because Mrs. Reeves, whom she disliked, had said it? 



TALK 


81 


And then the bookstore Delia argued, not with words, but with 
images and smells; globs of grease sticking to blackened pots; 
whiffs of ashes arising from a fire that wouldn’t burn; the smell 
of coffee that had burned; that sour smell, sweetish, sickening, of 
charred cocoa; yellow, greenish biscuits, rocky. . . . And Page 
was used to good food. Mrs. Reeves was noted for it. 

All brides must learn. She was soon to be a bride. That third 
self had images too, potent ones. A bride. . . . Misty white 
veil. . . . Misty wonderful life to come with Page . . . Page. 
The thrill of being in his arms, that nameless wonderful some¬ 
thing that made her skin, her veins, almost flow, alive . . . 
tingling . . . eager. . . . Another self? Oh, she was tired of 
having so many selves. She was tired of fighting. 

Why couldn’t she make up her mind? Make up her mind? 
Was that cartoon so important? Important? It swaggered, it 
covered her horizon. 

She sat down on her little sofa and put her head down on her 
knees. But still she saw that figure. Heat crept over her face 
and down her neck. The shame of being so conspicuous, of 
being laughed at! Would people notice those bowed legs, or 
would they think them part of the joke? 

She reached over and stroked one of those new purple sofa 
pillows that she had had made as a sort of defiance to Major 
Humphrey. How dim and far away was that defiance now. But 
the pillow was sweet. It looked so pretty, the warm purple with 
all that white woodwork. Why, the store was like a lover you 
didn’t love enough to marry and still too much to give up. Which 
you? Which self was she? What was she? 

Suddenly she was frightened, in a panic, alone, horribly adone 
in a dark, empty place filled with fighting selves. 





82 


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She wanted to be in Page’s arms. Safe. Poor Page had gone 
to Louisville to establish his alibi over that Goebel speech. 
Nobody thought he was concerned in the murder, but after what 
he had said, the formality of establishing his alibi had been 
advised. For the hundredth time Delia wondered why he had 
made that speech. . . . 

She ought to make up for his troubles. Giving up the store 
would comfort him. Mr. Birdwood and Mr. Gale had sent him 
some business, but mighty little. When you were in trouble 
friends did help you! It was only when you were wrong or they 
thought you were wrong, that they wouldn’t. But they had 
thought Page wrong. . . . Page was a man, though. Oh, it was 
hard to think things through . . . and it didn’t get you any¬ 
where. 

How Page had scoffed at the idea of leaving Merville! “That 
would be running away.” Page was no coward. 

Now his business uncertainty might be a real financial reason 
for her keeping the store, and yet her giving it up would make 
him happy. The more you thought the funnier everything 
seemed. Why couldn’t things be clear, and not webbed over with 
feelings? 

Restless, she stacked some books on the counter. Pumpy- 
dump-pump-y-dump. There was the Bible. Billy Fletcher had 
bought one because he had a high-school declamation to write. 
It reminded Delia of her text, “Blessed be the Lord, my strength, 
which teacheth my hands to war and my fingers to fight.” She 
knocked on wood. 

She wanted a sign; she didn’t want to decide. Which she? 
Cooking and home duties had to do with your hands and fingers; 
the store had to do with your brains and heart. Heart? It was 



TALK 


83 


like setting up an idol. It was wrong to care so much about a 
store! Maybe the Lord sent that verse into her mind to tell her 
so. What did He mean? Don’t you think He means you to do 
the thing you want to do, anyway? And suppose you don’t know 
what you want to do? 

Well, Page would come soon. But could he help her? No¬ 
body could help her! Nobody could ever help her! You had to 
make decisions alone. In reality you were always alone, separate 
. . . Occasionally a small part of you mingled, but the real you 
was alone, alone, alone. Alone, in black darkness fumbling among 
selves that fight . . . They couldn’t keep on fighting; one would 
have to die. 

Noontime. Oh, she didn’t want anything to eat! 

How could she feel as if she were in darkness when the sun 
was so terribly bright? It touched the shaggy silver greeting 
cards on the rack, turning them to gold. It pointed a slender 
golden finger at the one chatelaine set she had left. What a 
silly, useless thing it was! Why, it was all the rage! How could 
she think it silly? What was use, anyway? Oh, how her 
head ached! 

From across the square she could hear the talking machine in 
Aiken’s insurance office, through its great horn. 

“ ‘Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer true, 

I’m half crazy, all for the love of you, 

Zip-rrrr-r—spuz-szr-r-r-r-spzirzpirpsipr—’ ” 

Why didn’t they turn it off? There it was again: 

‘“But you’ll look sweet 
Upon the seat 

Of a bicycle built for two.’ ” 

Men thought you looked sweet where they put you. There! 



8 4 


TALK 


She was sour, strong-minded, old-maidish, bow-legged. . . . 

How could she be loved and admired any more when she was 
like that? 

“ ‘Tum-te-tum, 

Tum-tum-te-tum—’ ” 

The talking machine was in tune with her throbbing temples. 
Did it throb or did they throb? Which started which? She 
longed to be in bed, covered up . . . resting. . . . Nobody could 
see her. ... 

Oh, she didn’t want to talk to anybody! But Bob Fletcher 
came in the door, the first that day. Others had sniggered on 
the outside. 

In an elaborate offhand manner he said, “Thinking of selling 
this building, Delia?” 

Suddenly she seemed to merge into a longing for peace, peace 
within herself, and peace with others. She was conscious of no 
decision, of no crisis, but she said, “Yes.” 

“’At’s fine. How much ’ll you take for it?” 

“You’d better settle that with Page,” she said, properly. She 
didn’t feel like settling anything, and it was Page’s place to 
settle such matters. 

His eyes dragged from that glittering window. Delia saw his 
suppressed mirth. She glared at him. His eyes veiled. 

“Well, I’ll see Page,” said he. “Certainly is a warm day.” 

He departed. 

Peace. She was no longer one with that swaggering cartoon. 
She had killed the self that lived in it. She’d be pretty and sweet 
and beloved again, in lavender mull. No more fumbling, alone 
in darkness . . . darkness, moving darkness, like in that cave 
on the Nashville Pike, and in it she saw a hideous picture of her- 





TALK 


85 


self, her fluffy self, fighting the bloomer girl. In the dark, the 
heaving, moving dark. Sticky, warm blood, red, flowed and 
spurted. It spurted into that figure on the windowpane. It 
could . . . down one leg, and up the other, straight to her 
heart. . . . 

Well, really she was having crazy thoughts! 

She heard some one whistling as he passed, happy, as if she 
weren’t miserable, as if something hadn’t died. That new- 
leather smell was like the shrill sweetness of funeral flowers. But 
. . . she was through with thinking. 

“ ‘My hands to war, and my fingers to fight.’ ” 

She locked the door and pulled down all the shades. 

Tessum Napoleon always dusted the books. She would dust 
them now. She must learn to dust. Ugh! What an awful 
rag! That was a nice set of Ibsen. The Doll’s House, first. 
The front, the back, the sides. Bang! Tessum dusted them that 
way. Ibsen lied. You couldn’t slam doors on custom. There 
she was thinking again, and she was through with thinking. 
Women weren’t supposed to think; if they did, they got hateful. 

She was through with books, too. She slumped The Doll’s 
House on the shelf, the purple brocade fell to the floor, with the 
book. Flushing, Delia stepped on it. The Doll’s House sprawled 
on the floor, one red side scrunching loose from the leaves. Sud¬ 
denly Delia seized it and tore it, page after page. Oh, how good 
it felt to tear it. Scrunch, scrunch, scrunch, rip-r-r-r, how queer, 
there wasn’t any blood . . . 

She straightened, horrified at herself. Suppose some one had 
seen her? Quickly, softly, she put the bits of paper into a small 
pile. Funeral pile. . . . Oh, why couldn’t you stop thinking 
when you wanted to? 



86 


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That must be Page rattling the door. Quick, she must get 
those scraps out of the way. Secrets from Page? There would 
always be secrets from Page, perhaps even from herself. No 
matter who was with her, she was alone, alone inside of darkness 
that moved and tore. . . . 

She hurried to the mirror at the back of the shop. She brushed 
her pompadour smooth. That violent color was becoming. And 
Page liked her eyes at their bluest. 

He knew. Bob Fletcher must have met him on the way. How 
his eyes shone! If she didn’t love him, she’d hate him for being 
so glad. 

“Delia! Darling, I’m so happy! Oh, you don’t know how 
happy I am! I knew if I waited you’d come around. But it 
has been hard, people thinking I ought to interfere,” he said. 

He had been no Ibsen hero, letting her choose. He had been a 
good politician. But his arms closed around her. They stilled 
that throbbing pain. Ah ... the magic of his touch! Her skin 
came alive to him. She loved him. 

How could she have been so silly and tragic and morbid? 
Alone? When she had Page, and this . . . She raised her head, 
from the crumpled flower in his buttonhole. The store? Why 
it was nothing. Page, and the tender magic of his touch were 
everything. Relaxing, fusing, soothing, exciting all at once , . . 
wonderful. . . . 

Without warning she began to cry. She couldn’t stop. 

“You’ll love me a lot? Forever and forever, Page? Forever 
and forever? No matter what happens. Even if . . . if . . . I 
ruin ev-everything I cook?” 

“Silly girl. Sweetness.” 

“But promise me, Page, solemnly, you’ll adore me forever?” 



TALK 


87 


“Solemnly, Delia darling, I’ll adore you forever.” 
They loved each other. 



The town, gratified that Delia had “come to her senses,” had 
known all along that she wasn’t “that kind of a girl.” Each 
person who had “spoken” to Delia felt personally responsible for 
having “brought her around,” and particularly interested in her 
welfare. 

Major Humphrey patted his large statesman’s nose, as you 
would pat a dog that was your dog and suited you. Similarly he 
patted it after his trips to Louisville. Mrs. Alice regarded it as 
a signal for a new bonnet. This time the major bought a cathe¬ 
dral-gong clock for Delia. An Arab mounted a bronze steed at 
one side of its enormous onyx-and-marble middle. Before it was 
sent to Delia, Merriam’s jewelry store exhibited it, and all but 
those few of the major’s friends who had financial reasons for 
knowing, wondered where he got the money for it. 

Squire Preston presented Delia with a locket containing the 
picture of his sainted mother. He could not present it properly, 
however, because he wept over his sentiments whenever he tried 
to express them. 

Mrs. Birdwood and Mrs. Gale decorated the church with 
smilax and rambler roses for Delia’s wedding, and Mrs. Reeves 
gave her a set of cut-glass bowls. Mrs. Mollie baked the wedding 
cake. 

Mrs. Mollie was tremulously happy. From all sides she heard 
of Leslie’s devemess. He was a rascal for cartooning Delia, but 




88 


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a genius for doing it so well. Mrs. Mollie couldn’t decide whether 
he would be a Bouguereau or a Corot. 

Squire Preston said that he was a born cartoonist. It was the 
business of the cartoonist to show up evils, that they might be 
corrected. Ridicule was the cleansing fire. The squire added, 
sentimentally, that he had always felt like a father to Leslie, and 
he was going to help him through art school. There was no use 
to help Page Reeves. Page was a natural-bom fool. 

Eudora Dexter said that Les wasn’t trying to correct any evils; 
he was trying to be devilish. It was devilish to engrave that 
bloomer girl on Delia’s window with bow legs and everything, and 
if nobody else would give him a licking, she would. She watched 
for him and grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, and they had 
a regular fight in the vacant lot next to the Dexter place. Les 
didn’t want to fight back, because she was a girl, but she said it 
would be more fun if he would and dared him to, so he did. All 
the boys in the neighborhood looked on and she finally made him 
say, “ ’Nough.” 

It was an extremely unladylike performance. Her father said, 
“Tut, tut!” and her mother said, “Oh, Eudora!” 

The men chuckled over Eudora’s last rampage, and pitied her ' 
husband if she ever got one. He would have his hands full. But 
no man was likely to marry a girl who was so “talked about.” 
Mrs. Reeves said she was “dis-gust-ing.” Charlie May told her 
she needn’t have done it for Delia. Evidently Delia was glad to 
get away from the store. She didn’t seem to want to talk about 
it, and when the sale was held to wind it up, she wouldn’t even go. 



Book Two 

The Little Gray Cottage 


t 





But Delia was ecstatically happy. It was so nice to feel at 
peace with everybody, so nice not to worry about what anybody 
was saying, beyond the delicious worry that the bell boys or the 
maids or the guests at the Springs might say that she and Page 
were honeymconers. And theirs was a perfect honeymoon. 

Mrs. Humphrey, assuring Delia that she and Page were an 
“ideal” couple, had warned her of small adjustments, difficult at 
first. The honeymoon was not always the happiest time. But 
Page and Delia had nothing but happiness. 

When Page thought of his career, of the foolhardy speech he 
had made, he turned to Delia, and in his love for her, he lost 
himself and forgot his worries. When Delia thought of her 
store, seeing it as some bright and glamorous picture on a magic- 
lantern slide, she felt a twinge of melancholy which horrified her. 
But Page’s kisses healed her twinges and blotted out her horrors. 
They healed her worries over the future and her regrets over the 
past. Page and Delia flung themselves, wrapped themselves in 
love, and found it a tender, fiery blanket that smothered all their 
thoughts and left them happiness. 

Triumphant, Delia wrote to Charlie May that nobody could 
know how “considerate” Page was, nor how “wonderful.” Every 
minute of their honeymoon had been perfect. She and Page had 
decided that they were perfectly mated. They were like Dante 
and Beatrice, Delia added. Fortunately, Charlie May knew no 
more details about Dante and Beatrice than Delia did, her edu- 

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cation having been “finished” at the same seminary for young 
ladies at Tisdale. 

On their return Page and Delia went straight to their little 
gray cottage on Hill Street, which had as many twists and whirls 
as the latest diamond breastpin. It whirled into a front bay win¬ 
dow with a fretwork balcony. It twisted into a cosy corner 
adjoining the parlor and whirled again with a semicircular bed¬ 
room. It was marvelous, considering what a small cottage it was, 
how many twisting halls and passages it had. To keep them clean 
was practically impossible. 

Delia had bought the cottage with the money Bob Fletcher 
paid for the store, and she had made the deed over to Page. In 
her passion for him, she could not quench her need to give, give, 
give. She could not give him enough. 

The store sale paid for the furnishings, with a hundred dollars 
to spare. This Delia put in the bank. Teasing Page, she 
wouldn’t tell him what it was for. Page secretly decided that it 
was for Page junior, and was deeply touched, although Page 
junior was not yet “in the offing,” according to Mrs. Reeves’ 
delicate phrase. 

Whenever she made significant inquiries of Delia, Delia was 
infuriated, and very polite. Mrs. Reeves had no right to hound 
her, to intrude on her privacy. She was happy to belong to 
Page, but Mrs. Reeves acted as if she were the queen regent of 
a royal line which Delia had espoused. 

Every evening on his way home Page stopped by to “see his 
mother.” The night before his wedding she had told him how 
she had sacrificed her life for him and how lonely she would be. 
Together they had examined his baby pictures, his boy pictures, 



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and his college pictures. She had cried over his first precious 
little shoes. Page swore that no day should pass without him. 

Then he phoned one day that Merville was playing a “double 
header” with Hemple Grove, which would keep him too late for 
his usual visit. But Mrs. Reeves was so hurt that he never failed 
her again. “It would be different if I demanded anything,” she 
had said. 

She bragged about her attentive son. “He says Delia is his 
wife, but I am his sweetheart,” was her boast. When friends 
asked how Delia was getting along with the cottage, she evaded 
them. She said, “Oh, brides have a lot to learn.” 

Actually, she was appalled at Delia’s incompetence. 

Page had insisted on his mother’s sharing their first supper in 
“their own home.” He supposed that preparing noon dinner 
would get Delia used to it, so used was he to his mother’s capa¬ 
bility. 

That first day was a Sunday and Page stayed home. The 
breakfast coffee scorched and the biscuits burned. You couldn’t 
tell whether the eggs were meant to be fried or scrambled. And 
all the twists and whirls and winding halls filled with smells, the 
strong, strangling smell of burnt grease, and the sour smell of 
badly made dough. And Page, used to his mother’s ways, won¬ 
dered why Delia, instead of cleaning up the pots and pans and 
dishes as she went along, deposited greasy spoons on fresh ones. 
She took a baked (and underdone) potato out of the oven and 
split it on one dish and served it on another. She seemed bent on 
making extra work for herself. 

Before dinner Page laughed at her tenderly. He loved her 
helplessness. And she looked so pretty and domestic in her blue 
percale house dress, with the sun shining through the kitchen 



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window on her silvery blond hair. She had her sleeves rolled 
up and he couldn’t stay away from her; he would slip up and steal 
kisses from the white, white under-surface of her arm. 

After dinner his laugh wasn’t so tender, it was abused. He 
couldn’t eat anything she had cooked. But she was, after all, 
a bride, and the bride’s first meal was always material for jokes. 
She could learn. 

Supper was worse, with Mrs. Reeves there to see though not to 
eat it. Mrs. Reeves had respect for her digestion. 

Delia had acquired a little red ledger. Everything she bought 
was to be entered in the ledger, and she planned to surprise 
Page with the column of beautiful figures showing how much she 
had saved. Her marketing was done with due respect for the 
ledger. 

She bought a cheap cut of round steak which would have been 
a subtle problem for Mr. Oscar of the Waldorf. It didn’t worry 
Delia. She put salt on it and put it in a skillet with some lard. 
Then, as a concession, because Mrs. Reeves was there, she made 
some gravy. On Delia’s new green-and-gold china platter the 
meat laid like a large island of solidified lava. The gravy 
separated queerly. It looked like brown fur drifting on a clear 
stream. The peas (so troublesome to shell because they would 
skip out of the pods to the kitchen floor and roll under the table) 
had a wrinkled aspect, the wrinkles outlined with a brownish line. 
The biscuits were soft and squashy. And Delia had tried to 
make an apple pie. Page tried to joke about that pie. He 
couldn’t, though he thought he could joke about anything. 

With muscle applied to knife and fork, he had pulled off a 
bite of steak. But he found that the more he chewed it the more 



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it solidified. He feared that if he swallowed it he would be sick, 
and if he didn’t Delia would be hurt. 

He said, “Wasn’t that the door bell?” and started for it. 

But Delia was there first. 

“No,” said she, “it must have been your imagination.” 

Then he took no chances. He arose from the table, and didn’t 
say “door bell” until he was out of the dining room. 

He returned relieved. He had spat the steak on the front yard. 

“I reckon that was my imagination, too,” he said. 

But he saw the tears in Delia’s eyes, and went over and kissed 
her. He knew that it was truer to their love not to pretend. 

“Poor little darling!” he said. “It just hasn’t learned to cook, 
has it?” 

Mrs. Reeves was merrily tactful. 

“No, no! Nothing for me. I’m just looking on. I’m too old 
to eat bride’s cooking. Never mind, Delia, don’t you care. I’ll 
send you a good cook-book to-morrow.” 

But Delia did care. She tried to joke, but she couldn’t. It 
was terrible to fail like that, with Mrs. Reeves looking on. How 
she hated Mrs. Reeves. . . . How she hated. . . . Oh, what a 
miserable failure she was. And Page was so sweet. His sweet¬ 
ness almost broke her heart. She mustn’t cry, though. And she 
was so tired; she had worked all day. As soon as the dishes from 
one meal were washed she had begun another. And she had 
broken a green-and-gold vegetable dish. She felt so lonely . . . 
and resentful ... all mixed up . . . panicky. . . . And there 
was Mrs. Reeves looking so stylish and young and capable. Mrs. 
Reeves had done her own cooking for years. To do your own 
cooking for years. . . . Mr. Gale’s voice, “To make a business 
asset out of a liability shows genius, Delia.” Oh, why should she 



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think of that now? She seemed to be a snarling mass of thoughts 
which she couldn’t control. 

But quite steadily, and even archly, she said to Mrs. Reeves, 
“You will keep our little secret?” 

“Ah-h,” said Mrs. Reeves, complacently, “how nice! Think 
of it, Page, you with a little . . .” 

“No, you misunderstood, Mother Reeves!” Delia’s fury gave 
no sign save the darkening blue of her eyes. “I meant I’d hate 
to have anybody know what a bad supper ...” 

“Don’t worry, I wouldn’t tell anybody for anything,” said Mrs. 
Reeves, laughing. 

But Delia, instead of being grateful for this assurance, was 
annoyed at it. Why should Mrs. Reeves act as if it were a dis¬ 
grace to ruin your first meal? Didn’t she say, too, that brides 
all have to learn? It was nothing to be ashamed of! 

Page took his mother home, and with no explanation she led 
the way to the icebox and swiftly, daintily, arranged a little lunch 
for the two of them. Had she asked Page first, he would have 
refused it; had she reflected on Delia he would have refused it. 
As it was, he decided that after his mother had taken all that 
trouble, he would hurt her feelings if he didn’t eat the delicious 
little lunch. 



The little gray cottage became a malign personality which con¬ 
spired against Delia. How could any one reach the four ledges 
that soared on both sides of each overmantel, ledges projecting 
from tiny oval mirrors that grayed with coal dust from the 



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97 


kitchen stove? And every room had its overmantel. How could 
any one penetrate all the carving on the “massive carved bird’s- 
eye maple bedroom suite?” And yet every leaf, every rose, every 
curlicue was a not too mute reproach. 

But the parlor and the cozy corner vied for sheer malevolence. 
The parlor was all that a parlor could be. It was a maze of 
bamboo bookracks, brass-and-marble taborets, and tufted leather. 
Delia had been so proud of the walls. They were hung with a 
heavy composition embossed with floral scrolls. Every spiral on 
it acquired a brown-gray edge. But the cozy corner, a marvel of 
moorish hangings, and shield and swords and easels and bric-a- 
brac, actually made you sneeze. 

Only the kitchen was free of tufts and pattern, but it conspired 
most actively. Smoky sour smells never lifted from it. Its 
pots and pans filmed with food beyond repair, 

And Delia grappled tirelessly, resentfully, hopelessly. She was 
sustained by Page’s love, which grew ever fiercer, more intense. 
At night she would cry a little, in his arms, and he would caress 
her, with quick, sure touches; he would kiss her, kiss her, kiss 
her. He couldn’t get enough of her, nor she of him. Their 
passion flared and flared, making up for everything. 

Page’s patience was a thing to wonder at. He often wondered 
at it. He would not help Delia, nor did she expect him to. A 
man wouldn’t know how. She didn’t know that he did know how. 
But he had helped his mother too much and for too long. His 
rebellion was still within him, strong enough to withstand his 
love for Delia, strong enough to determine him not to “start that.” 

And every day when he went to see his mother, she fed him. 
She sacrificed her supper hour for this new and silent bond. 
Furtively they enjoyed delicious nourishment, though they never 




9 8 


TALK 


mentioned it to each other. It was taken for granted, like an 
umbrella in the rain. To speak of it would have been disloyal 
to Delia, and that Page would not permit. 

It came upon Delia, with a sort of desperation, that something 
must be done. The cottage was besting her. She could not hire 
an adversary, therefore she must buy one, or two or three. What 
better way could that hundred dollars tucked in the bank, for “a 
rainy day,” be spent? The answer she had found during her 
brief period of defiance at the store. It was labor-saving devices. 
She had looked them up, and their promises were magical. 

But “some people didn’t believe in them,” and to be criticized 
was not her wish. She decided to “ask people.” 

Mrs. Humphrey was giving a card party in honor of a visiting 
Reeves cousin and of Charlie May’s return from her honeymoon. 
The party was pointedly limited to “matrons,” an excuse to omit 
Eudora, for Mrs. Reeves’ disapproval was relentless. 

Delia had been horrified when the cousin’s advent was an¬ 
nounced, but she was more offended than relieved when she was 
deftly informed that she would not be expected to have her for 
a meal. But she was expected to go to Mrs. Humphrey’s party 
whether she had time to go or not. 

Mrs. Humphrey was celebrated for her original parties. She 
“slaved” over them, and went to bed for a week afterward, and 
everybody said, “Wasn’t it perfectly lovely, but where do you 
reckon they get the money?” 

This was an Indian euchre. Pictured braves of a most alarm¬ 
ing fierceness covered the parlor walls. The tally cards were 
paper tomahawks, cut in half, and partners found each other by 
matching halves. Feathers served as lone-hand tallies. The 



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99 


first prize was an Indian blanket, the visitor’s prize an Indian- 
head paper weight, and the booby an Indian club over which there 
was much laughter. A tent completely inclosed the dining room, 
and the ice cream, from Louisville, was actually molded in the 
form of tiny squaws, and the cakes iced to look like papooses. 
There were even candy pipes to smoke at. 

And at such a party Delia kept asking everybody what she 
thought of labor-saving devices. Mrs. Mollie felt that they were 
not quite homelike. They couldn’t have any real feeling. Mrs. 
Birdwood thought it unwise to experiment. Mrs. Gale had never 
seen any. Charlie May said: “What will you think of next, 
Delia? Labor-saving devices! I never heard of such a thing! 
Here! That’s my trick. Clubs are trumps, you know.” 

The Merville News pronounced the party the most original 
and unique affair ever enjoyed by the ladies. Never had there 
been such elegant, elaborate, and delicious refreshments. The 
article was signed by Belle Merriam, for since Bob Fletcher, the 
proprietor of the News , was the son-in-law of the hostess, he could 
not write editorially of her party. 

That week Delia brought labor-saving devices into every con¬ 
versation, except where she knew they would be definitely 
opposed. Page said little. Being of a hopeful nature, he thought 
that nothing could make matters worse. A month past he would 
have resented Delia’s spending that money on anything but Page 
junior, who was still not yet “in the offing.” Now he realized 
that if Delia couldn’t manage without a child, how could she 
manage with one? But he considered a son his due. Between 
his longing for comfort and his male vanity, he made no decision. 
He left it to the Lord. 




IOO 


TALK 


And Delia, persisting, found an ally in Mr. Henry, of the 
Eureka hardware store. He believed in labor-saving devices. She 
could order them through him. 


4 

“The Delight,” a washing machine, arrived first. 

Laundry, despite Aunt Mandy’s conscientious efforts to do 
it cheaply, amounted up, in the ledger, which Delia kept as care¬ 
fully as she had kept her store accounts. She had no column of 
savings to show Page. It hurt her to hide anything from him, 
but she didn’t let him see the ledger. She couldn’t bear for him 
to see the muster of wasted food, and noting it accurately in a 
beautiful column seemed to make it worse. 

But Page liked plenty of clean clothes and an incredible num¬ 
ber of towels, and Delia spotted her house dresses in the kitchen 
and had to wear a fresh one daily. She wanted always to look 
nice for Page. Too many young matrons “let themselves go.” 
And she figured that with “The Delight” she could save enough 
on the laundry to have Aunt Mandy for a weekly thorough clean¬ 
ing of the cottage. 

It came on circus day, so Mr. Henry had to send it up, 
unescorted. The printed directions, however, were clear. It 
looked liked a huge tin boiler, but inside it was a cylinder to 
hold the clothes and four iron fingers which squeezed and scrubbed 
them when you turned a crank from outside. 

But whatever those fingers squeezed and scrubbed, they tore. 
They tore Page’s best silk shirtwaist into strips. Delia lifted 
them out with a spoon. She was so disappointed that she was 



TALK 


IOI 


bewildered, and she was bewildered because she thought, “How 
nice it must be to tear things like that!” Suddenly she felt tired, 
tired of herself, whatever that self might be, covering—crawling 
thoughts . . . horrid, hidden, unsuspected thoughts . . . horrid 
like those gray wormish bugs you find so busy beneath a rock 
when you lift it from earth where it’s been for a long time. . . . 

Faintly she heard the booming of the calliope. The circus 
parade was going around the square. She used to have her 
store window packed with friends to watch it. She remembered 
how Eudora had flirted with a clown. . . . 

Heat wavered like jelly across the yard, molded in between the 
whitewashed shed and the great spreading peach tree. And 
Delia was aware of a pat-tap, pat-tap, pat-tap in the front of 
the house. In the parlor, in the bedroom, hesitating there, 
through the dining room. Delia hoped it was a circus-day 
marauder, but she knew it was Mother Reeves. The front door 
was ajar and she never bothered to ring the bell. Had she 
noticed the unmade bed? Of course she went to see the bedroom; 
she knew Delia was in the kitchen! 

Mrs. Reeves wore gray mull with rose-colored dots, and a 
rose sash; her hat was a cool gray marvel. Her little hour-glass 
figure was after the latest fashion plate. . . . 

Delia had slicked her hair into a tight bun. She felt tiny 
bubbles of perspiration on her upper lip, perspiration slimpsing 
down her back. Her house dress was the kind of powderish 
blue cambric on which dampness darkens and spreads like ink 
on blotting paper. 

“My! Isn’t it hot? My! I just dropped in to say howdy. 
It was so crowded with the parade. People bumping into you, 
and so much noise! My!” Faltha Reeves peering with her 



102 


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bright eyes, pat-tapping about on her tiny feet, was like a curious, 
searching little bird. 

“Delia, my dear girl, is that laundry? It isn’t necessary to 
do your own laundry. Nobody does that!” 

Delia wanted to scream, “Oh go away and let me alone!” But 
she would have had to make up afterward. So she said: “The 
laundry amounts up. Aunt Mandy had to charge two and a half 
last week. Page’s soft shirts. . . .” That was a blunder. She 
should have left Page’s shirts out of it, because the muddled 
gray wisps of one of them were dripping, soapily, over the side 
of “The Delight.” 

“My! What is that?” Mrs. Reeves, holding her skirts up, 
crossed the kitchen and examined the object on the stove, gingerly. 

“It’s a washing machine.” 

“Oh! Mrs. Mollie said you were asking about them at Alice’s 
party. Wasn’t that a lovely party! You wouldn’t think that 
ice-cream molded so elaborately would be good, but it was. Of 
course I never can figure where they get the money. ... So 
that’s what labor-saving devices are like. How much was it?” 

“Fifteen dollars. It’s really very reasonable!” Delia had to 
defend something about “The Delight.” 

“Well ... I’m afraid old ways are best. This running after 
new things doesn’t pay, does it? Amy Reeves said, when she 
was here, that trying to get around work wastes more time than 
going through with it.” 

“What peculiar color hair Cousin Amy has!” said Delia, with 
apparent irrelevance. 

“Page has so much family feeling,” said Mrs. Reeves, with even 
more irrelevance. She stared at Page’s shirt, putting her head 
to one side to get a better view. 



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103 


“Well, I must be running along. You’ll want to primp up a 
little for Page. Isn’t he particular about little things! I just 
dropped in to say howdy, and, Delia, Mr. Scanlon has some new 
string beans. I told him to save you some. Page is so fond of 
them, cooked with a little bacon. I must run along!” 

There was the twelve o’clock whistle from the ax-handle fac¬ 
tory, and Delia had forgotten about dinner. She remembered how 
significantly Mrs. Reeves had avoided glancing at any part of 
the stove except where the boiler was. And whenever Mrs. 
Reeves wanted to emphasize anything, she avoided it significantly. 

Trying to be quick, straining, Delia dragged “The Delight” off 
the stove and into the closet. She grabbed some potatoes. She 
had learned to boil potatoes and she could broil chops, but cheap 
chops were ghastly and good ones were expensive. And string 
beans were tragic. Yesterday Delia had cooked them without 
stringing them. They almost strangled Page. Finally she had to 
swab them out of his throat with a piece of cotton on the end of 
a tooth pick. And he had been so sweet and noble and humorous 
about it. Dear Page! She wished he would occasionally omit 
the humor. 

He used to be just Page, her lover. Now he was a person with 
habits. She loved the person more and the habits less. His 
habit of reading jokes, and retelling them, peopled with local 
characters; his habit of making stock jokes about their daily 
lives;—those habits irritated Delia though she flayed herself 
for it. 

To-day he would say: “Boiled potatoes. Here’s where another 
eye breaks out on me. I get them from eating so many potatoes, 
darling.” 

By the time Delia had ruined most of her trousseau lingerie 



104 


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in the washing machine, she had heard him say, “How many de¬ 
lights in ‘The Delight’ to-day?” eighteen times. On the eigh¬ 
teenth day she hailed the ragman who drove a little buckboard 
with a cow bell on it, and a barking dog on the front seat. She 
offered him “The Delight” as junk for fifty cents. 

But Page was home, and he called out, “Say, let’s call it a 
swop for that dog you’ve got there.” 

“Well, Delia,” he exulted, “your washing machine has paid 
a dividend. I don’t know where he got a Gordon setter, but this 
old fellow is one. I’m going to run over and show him to Bob, 
and I’ll get me a gun. I’ll shoot some birds for you this fall!” 

“Won’t that be nice,” said Delia, flatly, wondering how you 
clean birds. 

4 

Delia felt responsible for “The Delight.” To all whose advice 
she had sought she was on the defensive. She felt foolish because 
they knew about it, and she kept saying, “Well, it certainly was 
reasonable, anyway. Only fifteen dollars.” 

Said the squire to his cronies: “It’s a wonder Delia’s new 
ideas don’t drive Page Reeves to drink. Say, Pilch Trenton says 
he can tell a new woman by the way she kisses, but he’d rather 
know she is one before she begins. Pilch, come here, I’m getting 
up a crowd to go fishing at Pherson Locks. . . .” 

And at Mrs. Merriam’s Lucky euchre party (where the decora¬ 
tions were horseshoes and four-leaved clovers and rabbits’ feet, 
to rival the Humphrey affair) Mrs. Humphrey said: “Poor Delia! 
Always running after new things. . . . Well. ... Oh, have you 
seen those new muffs to match the dresses? Amy Reeves had 




TALK 


105 


one. Pink chiffon with little blue roses. Listen, do you think 
she touches up her hair just a wee bit, maybe? Peroxide. 
Howdy, Faltha! We were just talking about how sweet that 
little muff of Amy’s was.” 

Delia sent her regrets to the Merriam party. She had to invent 
an elaborate story about a Tisdale school friend who was passing 
through Merville that day, one who had been there with her the 
year before Charlie May went. This mythical She didn’t play 
cards, nor could she come in for refreshments because she was 
in mourning. 

The Merriams lived around the corner from Delia’s old store, 
on which that bloomer girl still swaggered. Delia couldn’t pass 
it without going hot all over, without feeling sickish. She avoided 
town because of it. 

Then the country people protested that it wasn’t a proper 
sight for their wives. One prosperous farmer threatened to cancel 
his subscription to the News unless Bob put in a new window. 
After an unsuccessful attempt to make Leslie’s mother pay for 
it, Bob got one. 

But Delia had neither time nor energy to go to parties any¬ 
where. The little gray cottage seemed to smirk its dusty defiance. 
Devils, apparently, lurked in its pots and pans and stoves and 
churns. 

Page was bewildered. In the store, he had been allured by 
Delia’s cool competency, like his mother’s, save that, while it 
gave him the same sense of security, it demanded nothing of 
him. Now he loathed the thought of Delia’s having worked in a 
store. Her work in that store had deceived him. But she had 
sweet little ways he adored. She was Delia, his Delia. He loved 
the way she wrinkled her nose when she sneezed. He loved the 



io6 


TALK 


way she said “0-oh!” when she was puzzled. He worshiped her 
response to his passion. 

He warned her gently against letting her home duties interfere 
with her social duties. She hadn’t returned her wedding calls. 
They mustn’t drop out. 

Delia said she’d go to see everybody as soon as her “Wonder” 
chum and her new steam cooker got started. She almost dreaded 
their arrival. Suppose they didn’t work! Just suppose they 
didn’t. . . . But she mustn’t worry, she mustn’t be blue. Men 
wanted gaiety. How hard it was to be gay when you were 
failing, when you got nothing but patience or blame, when you 
heard, “What a wonderful little housekeeper Charlie May 
Fletcher is!” 

Charlie May came up to “watch the chum work.” 

Most people kept a cow in the back yard, to be driven forth 
morning and evening to and from a pasture lot. Page had done 
this for his mother, so Delia had to buy milk from the Humphrey 
farm, though it did “amount up.” But everybody made her own 
butter. In Delia’s old dash chum it took hours to “come.” 

According to the circular, the old chum was to “The Wonder” 
as was the mail to the telephone. You made, gathered, salted, 
and worked your butter in a triangle, filled with interlacing 
stencils of tin, revolved by gear wheels from the outside. It 
weighed seventy pounds and it cost twenty dollars. 

Praying, Delia knocked on its wooden flank three times as she 
poured milk into it. Then she turned the crank until she had 
to hold her arm muscles. When she gave out, Charlie May took 
it. In thrice the time even Delia made butter in the dash churn, 
small yellow lumps floated through the stenciled labyrinth, catch- 




TALK 


107 


ing in its comers. But you could neither gather nor work them, 
because the machinery took all the room. 

Charlie May tried to comfort Delia. “Honey, if you once get 
systematized. . . . Just do your churning every Monday morn¬ 
ing, the old way.” 

“I wa-ant to be systematic, but I just can’t,” said Delia. “How 
do you ever keep everything going at once? Churning and 
cleaning and cooking. Why, even with just the cooking . . . how 
do you. ... If I get the meat done right, then the vegetables 
aren’t ready at the same time!” 

“You’ll learn. It just seems to be a little hard for you. I 
don’t have a bit of trouble. Bob says I have too much time 
on my hands.” 

Delia wouldn’t let Charlie May know how hopeless she felt. 
She wished she could crawl in bed and stay there, and be sick 
so she wouldn’t have to think or work any more. 

“Just wait,” she said gaily, “till you see my new steam cooker. 
It’s simple; it ’ll work. I can’t do it all myself. Aunt Mandy 
says I can’t help it, I was bawn that way. And the modern 
thing is to get machinery to help.” 

“But machinery won’t do it. This won’t and the washing 
machine didn’t.” 

“Well,” said Delia, bound to defend them. “The washing ma¬ 
chine certainly was reasonable, and did you ever see prettier wood 
than there is in this churn! ” 

Although Delia hadn’t returned Mrs. Gale’s wedding call, she 
came to see Delia just as Charlie May left. 

“Never mind, Delia,” she said. “You’re a pioneer. Some day 
labor-saving devices will be invented that will be all right. You’re 
before your time. You’ll have to learn . . . honey.” 



io8 


TALK 


“You’re a dear to understand, Mis’ Sue.” 

‘We’re doing some pioneering in our family. Mary insists 
on going to college.” 

“Why, Mis’ Sue!” 

“I know, Mr. Gale says it ’ll make an old maid of her. But 
bringing up the girl is my job, he says. Mary’s got her heart 
set on it.” 

“She’s the first Merville girl . . . Aren’t you afraid she’ll be 
a regular blue stocking?” 

“I’m afraid she’ll never have a beau!” 

Later, Delia, with her terrible intuition, realized that Mrs. Sue 
had told her about Mary to console her, to show her that there 
was another person who didn’t fit into her time and place. Delia 
loved Mrs. Sue for her understanding, and was deeply hurt by it. 
It showed that everybody knew she didn’t fit. If only she could 
have stayed in the store, where she had fitted. But how could 
she, the way people talked? 

Page didn’t joke about “The Wonder.” Delia didn’t know that 
this was because Bob Fletcher had confronted him with, “Say, 
you all have a ‘Delight’ and a ‘Wonder,’ how about a junior?” 
Pilch said he reckoned Delia was too busy with her machines and 

was it true that Mr. Henry had ordered a kissing machine for 
her. 

Page laughed lamely, though his male pride was hurt. He re¬ 
frained from telling Delia, lest he hurt her feelings. For Charlie 
May had begun mysteriously and consistently to refuse invita¬ 
tions, and the milkman’s wife saw her in a mother hubbard. 
Bob Fletcher would be the first “young married” to be a father. 
He was importantly secretive about it. 




TALK 


109 


4 

As summer passed Page began to look worn. His russet-brown 
skin lost its russet glow, his full-lipped mouth paled. His mother’s 
suppers were not enough for him, and when he was forced to eat 
Delia’s cooking his pampered digestion suffered. Sometimes he 
wished she wouldn’t wrinkle her nose that way when she sneezed 
and that she would vary her “O-oh! ” when she was puzzled. 

Page had worries. Delia didn’t care what she ate. He did. 
And he had the financial burden. He could tell Delia to try and 
economize, but wives were not consulted on such matters. 

He wouldn’t tell her how small his practice was. 

His Goebel speech had estranged clients along with politicians. 
His mother often reminded him of the railroad work he had sacri¬ 
ficed for Delia, Title cases, petty cases flung at him by busier 
lawyers, remained. Page chafed at his obscurity. 

He dreamed romantically of some invention which would make 
his fortune, of getting in “on the ground floor.” He thought 
of oil fields, but he had no capital. He thought of the Klondike, 
but he couldn’t conscientiously leave his wife or his mother. He 
must make a fortune “on the side” by sheer force of brain. 

He heard a drummer at the Merville House tell about a man 
in Louisville who had invented “listeners” made of rubber tubing 
to be attached to the talking machine. On his way to Louis¬ 
ville to “look into” this, Page figured Aunt Mandy’s wages and 
the cost of a fine hunting gun on the back of an envelope. He 
called himself a “two-for-a-nickel,” tore up the envelope, and 
planned a mansion like the Gales’ with himself as host. 



no 


TALK 


While Page was thus occupied Delia was trying out her new 
steam cooker and jubilating over its success. 

It was a series of four tin compartments, each topping each. 
Meat, soup, a vegetable and pudding could be cooked separately 
and yet at once. A basic compartment held water and had little 
lion’s-paw legs to set upon the stove. And when the water boiled 
out, steam escaped into a pipe and blew a whistle, “to call the busy 
housewife that she may replenish the water,” said the directions. 

The new steam cooker cooked food and it was all done at 
once. Childishly, Delia jumped up and down in the kitchen, and 
said, “Goody, goody, gander!” out loud, and then quieted and 
looked about to make sure that nobody could have heard her. 
“Not even a mouse,” she thought, gleefully. 

She couldn’t sit quietly in a chair. She walked up and down, 
and made plans. It was too late to entertain the bicycle club, 
but it was their time to have the Young Marrieds’ Evening Euchre. 
She made a list of guests on a piece of brown paper from the 
butcher. Eudora Dexter had just returned from a round of visits 
in Virginia and Georgia. The party could be in her honor. 

Charlie May wasn’t the only one who had her work system¬ 
atized! And she, Delia, would start reading books and magazines 
again. She hadn’t read a line for weeks. 

And she had neglected her hair! Delia’s hair lustered with 
brushing and dulled without it. Her eyes blued with happiness 
and quenched with fatigue. Delia’s appearance depended on 
outward care and inward peace; it varied amazingly. She could 
look lovely in one hour and homely in the next. Let her hair get 
mussed, let her eyes be tired, and she was colorless. But she 
could flare into real beauty. 

For the first time in months, she dressed “right.” Her hair 



TALK 


hi 


got its silvery lights back, her skin glowed from hot, hot cloths 
and then cold ones, and her eyes (lit by the steam cooker) were 
as blue as tips of flame. She wore her mauve broadcloth suit, 
with a flowing lace jabot. She looked the dainty young gallant 
again, a glowing young gallant, tense with relief and taut with 
happiness. 

Page came home and found her like that and forgot his own 
disappointment. He forgot that it was “just his luck” that the 
man’s invention had already been patented. He forgot that he 
was tired, in the realization that this lovely, glowing Delia was 
his, his wife. 

Before he could ask any questions Delia showed him the list 
for the party. And he was so pleased at the prospect of showing 
off his house and his wife, at the prospect of being host, to his 
friends! 

Just then Charlie May (carefully covered with a fringed lap 
robe) passed with Bob in the Fletcher surrey. They stopped and 
hailed Page. 

“How about a drive before supper?” 

Page was doubtful. Supper had to be prepared, painfully. 

But Delia called out that they’d love to go. Page glanced at 
her curiously, and she beamed back again. He couldn’t guess 
that the cooker would be cooking their supper while they were 
away! 

But he was not cured of his faith in Delia’s competence. How 
she had managed that store! Maybe she was learning to manage 
the house. 

Charlie May’s features were a little swollen. A pregnant 
woman was unattractive, Page decided. Bob could brag, but this 



112 


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evening Page “had it on him.” Page reached over and took 
Delia’s hand, pressing it softly. 

And Delia knew that she looked her best and that Charlie 
May had never looked worse. Bob and Charlie May were certain 
that Page and Delia were envious of the coming addition. So 
everybody was happy. 

Page told some new jokes he had heard on the train, and men¬ 
tioned his Gordon setter. He was going to hunt this fall. Bob 
betrayed how the circulation of the News had increased in the 
last year. 

It was nearly dark when they drove back to the little gray 
cottage. 

Delia rushed to the kitchen to find the bottom compartment of 
her cooker burned out, but the food had cooked without burning. 
Well, even if she had spent all her own money, she’d get a new 
cooker somehow. It was wonderful. And she could stay around 
next time so that she’d hear the whistle. She could be 
reading. . . . 

She kept Page out of the kitchen. 

The dining-room table was festive with a clean tablecloth and 
goldenrod in a cut-glass bowl. 

As Delia strained the soup into the soup plates she thought 
how clear and pink it was—rose brew, she named it, fancifully. 

“How nice!” said Page. 

He took a spoonful. His brow creased slightly. He applied 
salt and pepper, and tasted it again. 

“You know, Delia,” he said, reaching over and patting her 
hand, “I never did care much for tomato soup.” 

Feeling just a little let down, just a little disappointed, Delia 
brought in the meat and sweet potatoes and pudding. 



TALK 


113 


“How nice!” said Page. He could see that none of it was 
underdone or overdone. 

He took a bite of beef. 

Delia was too excited to eat. She watched him. 

He frowned. That little tendon near his nose tightened. 

Delia put her hand to her throat. It ached, queerly. 

Page took some sweet potato, and scowled. 

Delia, watching him, felt the spirit drain out of her. Her very 
toes slumped. 

He tried the pudding. Bread pudding, in deference to the 
ledger. 

“What the hell, Delia! This is the worst yet. Everything 
tastes alike. Every damned bite tastes like stewed straw.” 

“It tastes perfectly all right to me,” said Delia, intent on 
stemming her tears. If she dug her finger nails into that soft 
part of her palm, hard. . . . 

“Anything would taste perfectly all right to you. Straw. 
You could live in a stable. You don’t care what you eat if it 
fills you! Or what I eat. You could live on anything. I’m 
civilized. I’m used to enjoying my food. This is the worst yet. 
I’d rather have things burned. That’s a taste, anyway. How did 
this stuff ever get like this? Delia, did that damned cooker come 
while I was away?” 

“Yes.” 

“For God’s sake throw it in the scrap heap with the rest of the 
junk that you spend a fortune on! I can’t afford for you to 
waste every cent I earn.” 

She had spent her own money for it, and said so. 

“Well, from now on it ’ll be mine. I don’t want it spent on 
machinery. If I did, I’d ’a’ married a mechanic. Why can’t 



TALK 


114 


you manage like other women? Look at Charlie May; her house 
runs wonderfully, even now, when she’s not well, too. Every¬ 
body says she’s a wonderful housekeeper.” 

“And I reckon everybody says I’m an awful one!” Had she 
cried, had she appealed to his emotions, Page would have com¬ 
forted her. 

But she didn’t cry, and Page wanted to hurt her. 

“Well, Bob Fletcher did say that he reckoned you were too 
busy with machines to have a baby, and Pilch Trenton wanted 
to know if you’d ordered a kissing machine.” 

Delia got up from the table and walked out of the room. She 
went into the pantry and locked the door, and sat down on the 
edge of the flour barrel. It was an uncomfortable seat, but she 
wanted to be uncomfortable. 

What was she going to do now? 

She had messed the housework, just as she had known she 
would. And machinery was useless. Nobody had sympathy for 
her; everybody blamed her because she couldn’t do what most 
women did. A lot of silly women were good housekeepers, women 
who could never run a store. . . . 

She should have kept on with what she knew how to do . . . 
the store ... but people wouldn’t let her. And now they even 
talked about her not having a baby. She wanted a baby . . . 
sweet, soft, wonderful ... her very own, own. . . . That wasn’t 
her fault. Let them blame it on God. Now she was getting 
blasphemous. Doctor Vaughn, her minister, preached about free 
will, anyway. She believed in free will. But what did free will 
mean? 

If she had any ordinary everyday free will she’d start the 
store again and not care what people said. Like Eudora. 



TALK 


115 

But the store was sold and she had no money and nobody 
would lend her any. And Page wouldn’t let her. . . . He’d be 
furious. . . . 

Delia reached over and fingered the flowered curtain that 
reached from the lowest pantry shelf to the floor. On the floor 
was a basket of potatoes. Well, she had learned to cook pota¬ 
toes . . . although Page joked about them. She hated his jokes 
. . . She hated . . . No . . . she didn’t hate Page! But he 
was mean to say . . . 

Whenever she was especially miserable, all sorts of awful 
hidden thoughts seemed to explode in her head . . . but they 
didn’t go far. They were always checked by a wall. And then 
what became of them? She didn’t know. But the wall was right 
and wrong. There were some things you couldn’t think! 

Think. Was she stupid? Charlie May managed. Mrs. 
Reeves managed. She hated Mrs. Reeves. They, the living 
world, seemed to be leagued against her. And she was alone. If 
she only had her mother, or her father, her dear father! Oh, 
why couldn’t she remember him without seeing that wax-doll 
figure in a coffin! 

If she could only cry. . . . Alone. If she had money of her 
own, it would be different. She’d be' independent. But women 
oughtn’t to be independent; that made them strong-minded. 
Page hated strong-minded women ... he said they never had 
any figure. 

But Page at that very moment was striding up and down the 
parlor carpet, wishing that Delia could have kept up the store, 
wishing that the town had let her. For he took that letting as 
seriously as Delia did. 



n6 


TALK 


Then with a deep and aching tenderness he mused on Aunt 
Mandy’s red-and-yellow bandanna and her sweet potatoes . . . 
with sorghum molasses and pecans. ... He resolved to “work 
his fingers to the bone” so that they could have her. ... It was 
romantic, heroic, to work your fingers to the bone for your wife! 

And Delia put her burnished head in her lap and tried to cry. 
It would help if she could cry and melt that hard, hard lump 
in her throat. But she couldn’t. She rocked her little mauve- 
clad body on the edge of the flour barrel. She had forgotten to 
put on the lid, and she had forgotten that she had forgotten it. 

For suddenly she stopped worrying about everything to start 
worrying about her dreadful quarrel with Page! Page, he was 
all she had and she loved him so! What was going to happen 
now? Would he make up? She didn’t want to. How could she 
make up, when she hadn’t said anything. ... He had said 
mean things! After all, she had some pride! She lifted her 
head proudly and straightened her lace jabot. 

And down she went backward in the flour barrel. 

There she was with her feet and her head sticking up, and the 
rest of her stuck in the barrel. She tried to wriggle out, but she 
couldn’t. She tried to cry; she couldn’t. She began to laugh. 
She laughed and laughed until she shrieked. 

And Page, who had been wanting to make up without doing it, 
came to the door and said in a very stern voice, “Are you sick?” 

How humiliating to have to say, “I fell in the flour barrel and 
I can-n’t get out!” but she shrieked with laughter. 

He laughed, too, and they laughed together. How nice it was 
to laugh together! 

But there she was still caught in the flour barrel, with the 
pantry door locked, and the key on the inside. 



TALK 


ii 7 


Page worked on the lock with a button hook and a hairpin 
until the key fell and he got the door open. He lifted Delia out 
of the barrel and into his arms, spraying flour over his best suit, 
but for once he didn’t care. 

For Delia was crying in his arms, clinging to him. 

They said they loved each other more and more. Troubles* 
brought you closer. Delia said she was going to try harder to 
learn some of his patience. 

Perhaps hating the work kept her mind from it. From now 
on she would learn how to cook, without trying to get out of it. 
She would try bit by bit to do it right. She would learn one 
thing at a time. 



In spite of these resolves, the coffee scorched the next morn¬ 
ing, and she was horrified when she realized that Page still 
expected her to entertain the euchre club for Eudora. He couldn’t 
see what the failure of the steam cooker had to do with it. 

The town was buzzing about Eudora’s visitor from New York. 
And she told a whole crowd at the fair hop that she had met him 
on the train. He picked up a magazine for her. She actually 
thought it was amusing that they hadn’t been introduced! And 
he was Lindley Campbell. His mother was a Lindley and his 
father was a millionaire. They had a box at the Opera and his 
mother had a diamond tiara and a diamond stomacher. Les 
Henderson had seen pictures of them in a New York society 
paper. 

Lindley Campbell was a slender youth with straight features 
and curly sand-colored hair and large brown-spaniel eyes. Pilch 



118 


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Trenton said he’d bet he could fry an egg on his socks and that 
his mustache looked like a misplaced eyebrow. But Lee Utley 
said there was nothing misplaced about Lindley Campbell. He 
was all there, the biggest catch that ever swam near Kentucky 
shores, which was very magnanimous of Lee. For Lee secretly 
adored Eudora, and it was hard to take second place in regard to 
“hot” socks, as well. 

Major Humphrey bet he was a fake. The real Lindley Camp¬ 
bell wouldn’t “wait on” a girl he had met on the train. Lee bet 
five dollars on his genuineness, giving the major his excuse to 
investigate. The major wrote separately to two friends in New 
York who would know, and their answers confirmed Lee. 
Eudora’s friend was Lindley Campbell and he was impeccable. 

The major went up to Louisville for consolation from Mrs. 
Fletcher’s beautiful sister Emmeline, who lived the sort of 
naughty novel that Mrs. Fletcher liked to read. Mrs. Fletcher 
was very stout and had a cast in one eye. 

And Mrs. Humphrey hired away the Dexters* cook in utter 
violation of the Merville code, although she told everybody how 
she called on Addie Dexter to inform her that she wouldn’t have 
hired Luna if Luna hadn’t sworn she was leaving, anyway, 
because “Miss Eudora had such swell city company.” 

“He is charming, Addie. Mr. Campbell. Such beautiful 
manners. And Northern men have such beautiful padded shoul¬ 
ders. Not that Mr. Campbell’s shoulders need padding . . . 
but, anyway . . . he is charming.” But Mrs. Humphrey failed 
to mention how much money she had offered Luna, the cook. 

Then Ei;dora called Luna to Mrs. Humphrey’s own telephone 
that very day and offered to teach her two new cake-walk steps 
if she’d come right back to them. 



TALK 


119 

And Mrs. Humphrey heard her say, “Yas’m, I’s coming, hot¬ 
foot, honey.” 

“To think of her engaging Luna right out of my house, Faltha,” 
Mrs. Humphrey complained to Mrs. Reeves. 

“My! That girl wouldn’t stop at anything,” said Faltha. 

4 

Lindley Campbell would be at Delia’s euchre party, though 
Delia quailed at the thought of him. It was strain enough to 
entertain for home folks, and twice the strain to worry lest some¬ 
thing go wrong, with a stranger among the guests. 

Delia sold the rest of her machinery to the junk man for fifty 
cents and paid for Aunt Mandy’s services for the day. She would 
have come for nothing, but Delia had pride. 

Aunt Mandy gave the cottage a thorough cleaning, and made 
chicken salad and three kinds of sandwiches and ice-cream and 
individual angel-food cakes. And Delia put a tiny flag on each 
piece, for it was to be an International Party. 

Each table had a floral centerpiece representing a different flag, 
produced by Delia with midnight toil and flowers pinned on shoe 
boxes. She had cut pictures out of the magazines, portraying all 
the rulers of foreign countries, to hang on the parlor wall. 

But when she tried to hang them, the parlor wall paper 
peeled off. The heavy composition, nailed on the plaster, gave 
way, taking slabs of plaster with it. 

Delia cried, and she was too tired to bathe the red off her 
eyelids. She was too tired to brush her hair. She was too tired 



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to press her lavender mull, and Aunt Mandy had no time. She 
looked washed out and homely, and she was too tired to care. 

But at first sight of Eudora Dexter, Delia rubbed her knuckles 
against her pale cheeks to give them color, and made surreptitious 
and ineffectual dabs at her back hair. 

Les Henderson, delivering extra forks borrowed from Mrs. 
Mollie, peeped through the parlor folding doors and whispered, 
“Miss Eudora, you’re a bunch of flowers and a horn blowing!” 
The men shouted with laughter and the girls ha-ha-ed feebly. 
“Les, you’re on the right trolley,” said Page. 

“Such a sweet dress, Eudora!” gushed Phillipa Merriam. “A 
Reed dress, isn’t it?” she asked, for Reed “gowns” made by Mrs. 
Reed in Louisville were known for their beauty and price. Hus¬ 
bands and fathers feared them. They took all the joy out of 
fair hops and weddings and seasonal changes. 

“I made it myself,” said Eudora. 

The girls glared at Phillipa for adding to Eudora’s triumph, 
though Phillipa had meant to diminish it, but they relaxed when 
Eudora giggled and said, “It’s mostly pinned. If I’m not careful 
it ’ll just fall to pieces!” 

It was champagne-colored chiffon, cut very low, the sleeves 
mere whiffs of color. Her skin was like the petal of a pink holly¬ 
hock, sturdy and soft and satin-smooth. Her hair fluffed out like 
topaz plumes with flame shining through them. And there was 
something alight in her eyes, something new and maddening. 

Mrs. Reeves sniffed. “My! Dis-grace-ful!” said she, and 
retired to a chair in the pantry. She wanted to watch Aunt 
Mandy make chicken salad. Did she use onion or garlic? 

All evening the men hovered about Eudora, sought her. So 
men might seek a fountain in a drought, and beside her the other 



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121 


girls were as shallow ponds, rippling with gossip and clothes and 
euchre, while Eudora was as a taut and leaping stream of life, 
vital, thrilling, exciting. 

Lindley Campbell wore a clawhammer coat, in contrast to the 
general blue serge. He glowered at every man who came near 
Eudora. He stood whenever a woman came to his table, which 
Merville men never did, but he paid no compliments, which 
Merville men always did, and he laughed at none of Page’s jokes. 

Delia kept trumping her partner’s ace. When she wasn’t 
agonizing for fear the wall paper would come down, she was 
agonizing for fear the ice-cream, despite Aunt Mandy’s care, 
might get salt in it. And then she saw Page, who took games 
seriously and always wanted to win, deliberately fail to take a 
trick, so that he could stay at a table to which Eudora was going 
to “progress.” 

Delia was bewildered. Of course Page loved her, his bride! 
Why, only last night . . . 

But when Page’s eyes looked into Eudora’s, they seemed to 
skate along a tissue woven of their looking. Eudora responded; 
she responded to every one, but for Lindley Campbell she was alto¬ 
gether lovely. For him her sherry eyes darkened and deepened. 

Phillipa Merriam won the first prize, a cut-glass dinner bell, and 
Lee Utley the booby, a toy donkey, which Bob Fletcher claimed 
for Junior, then forty-seven hours and thirty-three minutes old. 

As the evening wore on, Delia wondered the why of parties, 
with their expense and suspense and fatigue. Suppose that wall 
paper descended to maim a guest and disgrace her? It didn’t. 
Suppose the refreshments went wrong? They didn’t. But no¬ 
body except Lindley Campbell noticed her labored wilting center- 



122 


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pieces, and they seemed to annoy him. He threw one into the 
umbrella stand. 

And nobody was even going to talk about this party, because 
Eudora gave them too much to talk about. 

After refreshments were served, she sat in the cozy corner 
with Lindley Campbell while he smoked a cigarette. Lee Utley, 
hovering about, said, “I dare you!” Eudora reached for Lindley 
Campbell’s cigarette and put it between her soft red lips, and 
puffed at it daintily. 

“Miss Dexter, you look charming with that smoke curling 
around your head. I say it looks like—er—er—a frame, you 
know.” Lindley Campbell flushed quite red, from the effort and 
his pride in it. 

But Faltha Reeves, who was peering at the party from a con¬ 
venient space between the moorish drapery and the wall, could 
scarcely believe what she saw. She recovered quickly and altered 
her plans for the next day. Page should get fruit instead of 
sweet-potato pie for supper, and she would call on Mrs. Mollie, 
Mrs. Merriam, Mrs. Fletcher, and Mrs. Humphrey. Of course, 
Phillipa would tell her mother, and if Alice Humphrey found it 
out, she could be trusted to tell Mrs. Fletcher. Faltha decided 
to call on Mrs. Birdwood, who, though she didn’t like gossip, did 
get so completely shocked, that when forced to listen she made 
a very satisfactory audience. 

The next day it was reported that “Eudora Dexter smoked so 
many cigarettes that she was taken home sick in a cab,” and 
that “Eudora Dexter smoked a cigar ten inches long.” And the 
refrain was: “No man ’ll ever marry a fast girl like Eudora 
Dexter! They’ll rush her, I reckon she shows them a good time. 



TALK 


123 


And as for Lindley Campbell, well, could you imagine a man 
like that marrying a girl he was never even introduced to? His 
father has a box at the Opera! ” 

But two days later the engagement was announced. The Louis¬ 
ville Planet printed Eudora’s picture with a sketch of Mrs. Henry 
Campbell’s diamond stomacher, and even a Cincinnati paper 
had “Kentucky belle captures millionaire’s son,” which Lee Utley 
condemned as “a damned Yankee way of putting it.” 

Merville forgot about Eudora’s morals and buzzed about her 
huge solitaire, the fine rig Mr. Campbell senior was going to give 
her, and the big house on Fifth Avenue. 

Page had been out hunting with Bob Fletcher and had shot 
three more birds than Bob, and yet when he got back to town 
and heard about Eudora’s engagement it depressed him. He told 
Delia that he hated the idea of one of their old friends marrying 
a Northerner. They were different. He was sure that Eudora 
could never be happy with one. 

Delia had successfully broiled her eighty-sixth quail with 
Hampshire sauce, the way Page liked them. Trying, drudging, 
she had spoiled eighty-five, but the cost was only her labor and 
Page’s pleasure in shooting them. And Page sat there cutting 
the final triumph into small pieces and crackling its bones indiffer¬ 
ently, not eating a bite of it. 

Delia sighed gustily, a sigh that caught in her throat. 

Page said, “What’ve you got to sigh about?” 

“Nothing,” said Delia and sighed again. She decided that 
she was worried about how much the new parlor wall paper was 
going to cost. 

“Damn!” said Page, and went down to the Elks Club. 



124 


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Of course Delia didn’t know that his lack of appetite was 
partly due to the sweet-potato pie he had eaten at his mother’s 
an hour before. 


When Delia had been married a year she discovered something 
“in the offing.” She was pregnant. She dreaded telling Page 
because she dreaded Mrs. Reeves’ smug gratification, her intimate 
questions. But so consistently and miserably sick were her morn¬ 
ings, that she had to account for them. 

Page was delighted. Though Delia swore him to secrecy, he 
bragged of it, confidentially, all over town. 

Afterward, Delia could never remember the dreary months 
of her pregnancy. A haze of misery, they were pierced by a few 
lurid hours; Christmas, and the conflict between her long list, and 
the ledger, and then when she thought she had remembered 
everybody, a present arrived from Mrs. Mollie, who hadn’t sent 
her anything the year before! New Year’s Day, when the crowd 
arrived for eggnog (it was customary to go from house to house 
for it) they found the little gray cottage with only one cracked 
and one bad egg. Page’s rage, and Delia’s phone call to Mrs. 
Reeves, while Page “entertained the crowd”; Mrs. Reeves’ say¬ 
ing. No eggs in the house on New Year’s Day? My! Well, 
tell Page to bring your friends over here, it’s easier to make the' 
eggnog than to send the eggs. I have such a good recipe.” The 
struggle between going to market and phoning the grocer, when 
going to market meant showing how “awful” she looked, and 
phoning the grocer meant awful inroads in the ledger. The day 




TALK 


125 


her cape had fallen off in Mr. Scanlon’s and how embarrassed 
she had been when Lee Utley came in at that moment. And the 
terrible night when she thought the baby was coming before its 
time, and she couldnt reach Doctor Emery because he was out 
fox hunting with Page and Doctor Greene, and Delia, panicky, 
phoned all over town to have people try to find a doctor. Hour 
by hour, until midnight, she could hear the winding of the horn, 
“Whoo-ooo,” the baying and yelping of the dogs in the distance; 
and finally Major Humphrey chased them over the country and 
brought Doctor Emery back in triumph. And Delia was all 
right! Nothing happened. Page was furious, and she cringed, 
knowing that it would be all over town, what a silly she had been! 
Otherwise, the days were numb rounds of cooking when the 
thought of food was agony, of cleaning when she ached with 
nervous fatigue. 

Pregnancy was not becoming to Delia. Her features swelled 
and distorted and her color turned greenish yellow. Though 
Page tried nobly to conceal his feelings, Delia knew that he was 
repelled by her appearance. Curiously enough, he became more 
fastidious about himself. He changed his cuffs oftener, and went 
in for hair tonics, which he didn’t really need. But Delia was so 
absorbed in enduring her physical discomfort that everything 
else was as a shadow in a dream. 

Page was home very little. He had become a crack shot and 
went bird hunting in the fall, and during the season he went fox 
hunting at nights whenever he could borrow a horse. It was he 
who cursed Lindley Campbell (just before his wedding) for 
shooting the fox and ending the chase, and “the damned 
Northerner couldn’t tell one dog’s mouth from another. Didn’t 
know the difference between Mr. Dexter’s Tom’s yelp and my 



126 


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Lizzy’s bay!” A crack poker player was Page, also; he won 
enough to pay for his tobacco. And in between he practiced 
enough law to pay about one-third of his bills. But he enjoyed 
life, and he was “in on the ground floor” in a great scheme. Why 
should he worry about grocery bills, when he’d soon be a million¬ 
aire! 

A man out on the Nashville Pike had invented a nonrefillable 
bottle. It was a wonder! And not only for Delia did Page want 
this fortune, but for Page junior, who was to go to Princeton. 
No law for Page junior; Page junior was to be a financier. 

Though Page had planned this, though Mrs. Reeves determined 
that her son’s son should be properly clad, had made baby clothes 
trimmed with blue ribbon, the baby was a girl. 

Page said, “Are you sure, Doc?” and then decided that it was 
just his luck. 

They weren’t even prepared with a name for a girl, but when 
Page suggested “Faltha,” Delia was so upset that Doctor Emery 
warned Page that she must not be crossed until she was well again. 

Delia wanted the baby named “Janice,” because Janice Mere¬ 
dith was the last book she had sold. 

“I thought you were through with books,” Page murmured. 

“I am,” said Delia. 

“Janice,” exclaimed Mrs. Reeves. “My! What a fancy name! 
Isn’t it little and red . . . and no hair at all. Page had a 
wonderful head of hair. Well, even if it is a girl, it can be a 
little homemaker for some man, one of these days.” 

Delia stirred on her pillow. 

“How do you make a home?” 

“My! If you don’t know, Delia, I can’t tell you,” said 
Faltha Reeves, eyes on a curlicue carved on the bed end. The 



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127 


curlicue was only less grimy than the daisies surrounding it. But 
this was no time to give Delia object lessons. After tracing the 
baby’s best features to the Reeves family and discovering “the 
Morehouse” in her worst ones, she said, “Now, I don’t want the 
baby to call me grandmother. She can call me ‘Dearest,’ like 
little Lord Fauntleroy called his mother.” 

For some time Janice called nothing but “Ooo-lah, Ooo-lah, 
Oooo-lah, Ooooooo-lah-h-h-hhhhhh.” 

Delia had no milk for her, and Janice’s lobster red turned 
to the wrinkled waxen gray of a newly hatched bird. Raising 
Janice was grim business. Nobody called her Snookums. No¬ 
body myumm-my-ummed over her. And instead of showing off 
the exquisite clothes Mrs. Reeves made her, she soiled them 
continuously. 

Mrs. Reeves said she had had plenty of milk for Page and 
she was thinner than Delia. She had called no doctor to prescribe 
baby foods for Page. A mother, unless a child was sick, ought 
to understand her baby. Delia’s contradictory attitude, puzzling 
Faltha Reeves, annoyed her. 

While Janice “hovered in the offing,” Delia didn’t knit an 
afghan for her. Crocheting would have taken skill . . . but 
knitting. . . . Her failure to knit proved her lack of maternal 
instinct to Faltha. And now that the child was a screaming little 
reality, Delia slaved for it, agonized over it, and Faltha sus¬ 
pected her of neglecting Page for it. 

Suddenly Doctor Emery found that Janice could digest pas¬ 
teurized cow’s milk. 

The pasteurizer dismayed Delia, though her fierce maternity 
reproached her. It was even more monstrous to clean than the 





128 


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water filter. . . . And Dr. Emery warned her that keeping it 
clean was life or death for Janice. 

She boiled and reboiled it and the elaborate rubber bottle 
fittings, until Charlie May told her “they” were using simple 
nipples now. Charlie May always knew what they were using. 

Bringing her robust little “Junior,” she came over to confide 
that “his nose would soon be out of joint.” She was “expecting” 
again. 

* 

While her food was problematical, Janice shifted day to night. 
She slept from sunrise until midafternoon, and wailed hardest at 
midnight. At three months the habit was established. 

Page secretly resented Janice. She was a girl; she wasn’t 
pretty. She was smelly and damp of bib and diaper and her 
wailing got on his nerves. She spoiled Page’s ideal of himself. 
A romantic hero would adore his small daughter, who would in 
turn be adorable! Then, secretly, he was jealous of the child, 
considered first where he had been considered first. And so 
secretly that he scarcely knew it, he blamed Janice for destroy¬ 
ing his passion for Delia. 

A romantic hero would adore his wife while she bore his child, 
and afterward, if her young beauty were quenched, he would 
revere her. Page had neither passion nor reverence for Delia. 

Delia had “let herself go.” Her hair, flat ash in color, was 
stringy from not being washed enough. Sleeplessness dulled her 
blue eyes and dark circles destroyed their slanting charm. She 
had discarded her neat house dresses for wrappers with great 
ruffled collars. They were easier to put on. Page hated them. 



TALK 


129 


He suggested craftily that if Janice’s cradle were moved out of 
their room and into the cozy corner, the drapery would protect it 
from draughts. And then he went over to his mother’s for naps 
of afternoons. 

Delia got no nap. Tired, cross, she was sometimes almost 
numb for want of one. 

Thinking out every motion, every detail, taught Delia to cook, 
to clean, to manage. She did nothing mechanically. Never in 
mind or spirit did she escape the cottage or Janice. She looked 
at no book save the ledger, which she still maintained secretly. 

At night, though the door, the armor, the drapery kept Janice’s 
cries from the parental bedroom, Delia heard them. Her 
maternity, full of pangs and terrors, made her tense, terrified 
when she heard a sound, terrified when she heard none. She 
would creep to the cradle, to listen to Janice’s breath, to feel her 
skin, often to startle her out of a doze. 

4 

Janice left Delia neither time nor energy for passion. But 
while Page’s optimism irritated her sometimes, it occasionally 
attracted her. 

Page could have worried. After expensively patenting the 
nonrefillable bottle, it was found to be unfillable. Page turned 
to investigating a combination folding-bed-bookcase-desk. This 
would make his fortune on the side. 

Whenever Mr. Gale or Mr. Birdwood threw business in Page’s 
way to pay his most urgent debts, he would invest in a “sure 



130 


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thing.” Thus he had always hope for capital. Delia’s cooking 
improved. He was the best shot in Merville, a good fox hunter, 
and he became umpire for the Merville baseball games. For three 
afternoons a week, for three hours, a grand stand and two teams 
hung on his decisions. They were always firm and delivered in a 
loud, ringing voice. He wore a baseball cap, becoming to his 
Jesuit profile, and he had a graceful way of leaping along, from 
back of the pitcher’s box where he stood, to any home plate where 
there was a dispute. 

And then he got typhoid fever and it was Delia’s fault. 

Delia, with the pasteurizer to clean, the baby to look after, and 
the cooking and cleaning to do more thoroughly, since she was 
learning how, neglected the water filter, a necessity in Merville. 
The stone, not scrubbed, clogged, and the water from the kitchen 
sink “seemed to taste all right,” so Delia used it for the table. 

Page had “walking typhoid”; he was not sick enough to stay 
in bed, but too sick to go downtown. And he had an opportunity 
to play the romantic hero. 

When Doctor Emery questioned Delia about the filter, Page 
said: “Now, Doc, that little woman’s had a lot on her hands. 
And you can’t tell, I might have gotten my bug when I drank 
some water out at the baseball grounds. Did you see the game 
with Tisdale? That was a close decision I had to make!” 

He winked at the doctor when his mother came in. She was 
kept in ignorance about the filter, so she was sure that Delia’s 
cooking, though somewhat improved, had weakened Page’s 
strength. 

Doctor Emery was discreet, but, as Page had foreseen, he 
told his friends that Page Reeves was a fine fellow! 

Delia felt gratitude and self-reproach. But Janice was yelling 



TALK 


13* 


through her “second summer,” that crucial period, and whenever 
Delia toiled over special delicacies for Page, she had to take 
attention from Janice. And Page, flaccid, sickly, complaining, 
absorbed in his health, yellowed, shrunken, was unattractive to 
her. The less she wanted to caress him, dutifully, the more she 
did it. His sickness was her fault, and he had been so noble 
about it. Sometimes she wondered whether his nobility would 
last, whether he would talk about it some day as he had talked 
about the railroad work, sacrificed for her. He had been noble 
about that in the beginning. Oh, she was “horrid”; she would 
go and make him some fresh lemonade! 

Page wished she would be less attentive. For when he would 
fall into a comfortable doze she would awaken him, to console 
him or give him lemonade. 

But as he got better he stayed on the front porch in the ham¬ 
mock and friends came to chat with him. At each approach Delia 
would scurry about, “straightening up,” worried for fear some¬ 
body would see something out of place. Then she would run in 
the house; she was “not fit to be seen.” 

Page, Mrs. Reeves, and Charlie May told Delia how wrong she 
was to drop out of things. But when she asked who was to look 
after Janice, who was to start supper, while she went calling or 
to a party, they had no answer save that Charlie May “managed.” 
Charlie May had a little negro girl to “help out” with her two 
children, but she was expecting a third. 

Mrs. Mollie came regularly to read Leslie’s letters from New 
York, where he was at art school. She said Delia was a comfort; 
others were out gadding when she came to call. She had asked 
Doctor Vaughn to write the Presbyterian minister in New York 
about Les, and wasn’t it strange that whenever Leslie tried to go 




132 


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to church, the minister was away on a lecture tour? Of course 
he was a famous man! If it occurred to Mrs. Mollie that such a 
famous man would have several assistants to take his place in that 
contingency, she never let it into her consciousness. But Mrs. 
Mollie was not worried about Leslie’s morals. She had embroi¬ 
dered the Beatitudes on every one of his shirt tails. 

Delia had secret sympathy with Leslie’s church problem. She 
had stopped going to church because she was ashamed of her old 
clothes and couldn’t afford new ones. Page’s new clothes were 
necessary; a man couldn’t afford to wear a shiny suit! But Delia 
shrank at wearing her old mauve with its little tight jacket, now 
too tight, when jackets were longer and skirts were fuller and 
sleeves had large puffs at the wrists. 

But when Mrs. Merriam, an active church worker, suggested 
that “they had missed Delia at church,” Delia said she couldn’t 
leave Janice, and if she brought her along Janice might disturb 
the service! 

“Can’t you leave her with her grandmother?” 

“Oh, Mother Reeves never misses church herself! I’ll be 
coming when Janice is just a little older.” 

By that time Delia hoped to save enough to get a new dress. 
But Mrs. Merriam, who found her logic irrefutable, told Mrs. 
Humphrey that Delia Reeves was “tiresome,” for Mrs. Merriam 
disliked having her activity refuted by anything. 

-ft 

The next week Mrs. Merriam forgot Delia’s affairs, because 
she was elected president of the Woman’s Temperance League. 




TALK 


133 


Her daughter Phillipa, a vivid brunette, wore white ribbon 
streamers constantly. They were becoming. Her younger 
children were forbidden to play with the Gale children because 
the Gales were “wet.” 

The Gales, the Birdwoods, and the Fletchers were “wet.” 
Major Humphrey was running for election on the town council, so 
he was “dry.” Mr. Birdwood’s conscience gave him no peace. 
As a Jeffersonian Democrat he couldn’t support a sumptuary law. 
As a man, himself free of temptation, he feared that weaker men 
needed protection. But he and Mr. Gale decided with Henry 
Watterson that prohibition was “the entering wedge to a sump¬ 
tuary fanaticism.” And in church, when he was asked to lead in 
prayer one Wednesday evening, the dry members of the congre¬ 
gation walked out. 

For Merville took this fight passionately and personally as well 
as politically. It was a local-option question. You couldn’t buy 
whisky in the town, but down by the boat landing, outside the 
city limits, you could buy it. Pherson County was wet. A 
county election previously called by the drys had been reversed 
by the court of appeals on the ground that the time limit between 
elections was illegal. And now another election was due. 

The campaign started with a women’s parade, led by Mrs. 
Merriam with Mrs. Mollie Henderson. Hadn’t she a son to save? 
She carried a banner proclaiming it, though Leslie never drank 
alcohol in any form. It made him sick. This didn’t alter the 
“sacred principle involved.” Of course the banner ignored Mrs. 
Mollie’s actual experience with “Demon Rum” in the person of 
the late Mr. Henderson. Mrs. Humphrey marched in the parade 
because the major told her to. 



134 


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The next step was the coming of Doctor Manston, the evangel¬ 
ist. Stakes were being driven for his tent. 

The hotter the fight became the more intensely Page longed to 
be in it, on the wet side, of course, along with most of the best 
families. 

Squire Preston was afraid to use him, despite his oratorical 
talent, for he was considered ‘‘erratic” and he was tarred with 
the odor of anti-Goebelism. With the women and the preachers 
having so much sentiment in their favor, the wets couldn’t afford 
to flaunt a man who had “spoken against a dead man and justified 
a murder.” 

And when the town was seething over local option, Eudora 
Dexter came home on a visit, for the first time since the birth of 
her son. Notwithstanding local option the town began to seethe 
about the cap with streamers that Eudora’s baby’s nurse wore, 
and about the wonderful clothes Eudora wore. The women said 
that Lindley Campbell looked at Eudora as if they were still on 
their honeymoon. The men said he was a “Yankee stiff”; he 
didn’t understand their jokes and he believed everything they 
told him. 

“Mr. Campbell,” said Pilch Trenton, “we’re having a little 
lynching party out at the fair grounds this afternoon. I think 
I’d be able to get you a ticket! ” 

“Really!” Lindley Campbell twisted his mustache. “Is it 
customary, to go to such ... er ... I mean ... am I 
expected to go?” 

“Expected! Why you don’t know the trouble it’s going to be 
to get a ticket. I never heard of a man’s refusing to go!” 

“I’ll be delighted,” said Lindley Campbell, unhappily. 

Lee Utley, still hopelessly attached to Eudora, was “showing 



TALK 


i35 


Campbell around town,” and when they left the stable for the 
Merville National Bank, Lindley asked him: 

“What kind of a man is Pilch Trenton?” 

“He’s quite a wit. There’s the little Merriam girl going into 
Horne’s; she’s going to break some hearts when she grows up! 
You know Pilch killed a man once.” 

“What!” 

“Yes, sir. Pilch sold a horse to a man from Tisdale named 
Delmane. Pilch is as straight as they make ’em, and the horse 
was perfect when he sold her, but the next month she got stipples 
and died. Delmane was a tough customer, nobody liked him, 
and he got ugly and accused Pilch of being a liar and a cheat. 
And Pilch just said, The hell you say!’ and pulled his gun.” 

“How long was he in the penitentiary?” 

“Delmane? Why, he died.” 

“No, Trenton! Didn’t he kill a man?” 

“But the man called him a liar. Bud Hemp was sheriff then 
and he was standing in the stable when it happened. He just 
looked the other way.” 

“And he didn’t arrest Trenton?” 

“I told you Bud heard Delmane call him a liar. And Delmane 
was a tough customer, anyway. But Pilch was kinda sorta sorry 
about it afterward. He’d rather tell a good story than to shoot 
a man, any day.” 

And then Lindley Campbell laughed lamely, certain that Lee 
was joking, but, since he had read about lynchings, he took Pilch 
Trenton’s invitation seriously and waited on the Dexter porch all 
afternoon, actually believing that he had such an appointment 
with Pilch. 

Major Humphrey said that Eudora didn’t enlighten him be- 



136 


TALK 


cause she wanted an afternoon free of him. He said that his dear 
wife believed that Eudora was tired of Lindley Campbell. It got 
over town that Eudora was tired of him. 

Page was smoking his after-dinner cigar when Eudora called 
on Delia. 

Eudora wore a tailored green broadcloth suit and a picture hat 
with a waving, sinuous plume, which was only less graceful than 
her slender form. Her beauty was so fresh and sweet, it made 
you think of the sea and wild violets and blazing autumn leaves. 

Confused, Page, who had answered the door, ushered her into 
the dining room, where the greasy odor of fried apples fought 
with the cabbagy odor of kale. Through one shadeless window 
brilliant sunlight glared at the stained ceiling where a leak had 
been; it brought the scarred tables and sideboard and the frayed 
chair seats into cruel relief; it flung a revealing ray on the faded, 
streaked, and ragged carpet, which the child Janice was appar¬ 
ently trying to scrub with her dress. She was crawling over it, 
her poor little tumed-up nose all runny with a cold. 

In a bleached blue percale wrapper, its wide white collar 
flecked with blue, her hair drawn back practically but harshly 
into an unbecoming knot, was Delia, removing the dinner dishes. 
Her cheap shoes squeaked, and every squeak Janice tried unsuc¬ 
cessfully, though loudly, to imitate. 

“Oh!” said Delia, and then recovering her inborn social poise 
she said: “Do sit down, Eudora! I am so glad to see you. How 
well you are looking. You’re a dear to come to see me. I haven’t 
time to pay calls these days.” 

Page threw his cigar out of the window—a good one that Mr. 
Gale had given him—and began to thrust sofa pillows at Eudora’s 



TALK 


i37 


back and at her sides. And there skated from her eyes to his 
that tissue of a look that linked their eyes together. 

Delia saw it. 

“I reckon Merville seems mighty small to you, and the people 
mighty poky, after New York,” said Delia, taking a chair. 

“I miss Merville. And as for the people! Well, New York 
people sort of sit back and dare you to amuse them instead of 
trying their darndest to amuse you!” 

“But haven’t they wonderful manners and all that sort of 
thing?” asked Delia. 

“It’s according to what you mean by manners. The men leap 
all over the place when women come into the room, and the girls 
pop up for their elders, but as for wanting you to be comfortable 
. . . inside! For instance, if Mrs. Smith Jones asks me a 
question and I don’t seem to want to answer it, instead of chang¬ 
ing the subject quick so I won’t be embarrassed, she begins to put 
me through a third degree. She’ll make me answer or bust! 
Down here Mrs. Humphrey’d wait and find out from her cook 
through my cook. I think that’s pleasanter!” 

“Do you see many changes in Merville?” asked Page. 

“Yes.” 

“I reckon you’re hearing nothing but local option. It’s just 
a political fight, but the way the women and the preachers are 
carrying on, you’d think it was a matter of sentiment.” 

“Oh, Merville wouldn’t be Merville if it weren’t taking sides. 
I’m glad to be here when it’s so homelike. In New York nobody 
cares enough about any one thing to take sides.” 

Every word she said seemed to prove that she wasn’t happy 
with Lindley Campbell, for wasn’t he a typical New Yorker? 
Page felt a wave of exultation. 



TALK 


138 


“Do you see Les Henderson much?” said Delia. “Janice, do 
take that poker out of your mouth!” 

Above Janice’s protests Eudora shouted that they did see him 
and that he had won the art-school prize. He drew a cartoon of 
Mr. Roosevelt trying to entice a suffragette with a set of triplets. 
And because of it he was offered a job on the Louisville Planet . 

“I think Janice is going to be an opera singer! Wonderful 
lungs. Well, Les’s suffragette is modeled on Miss Junie Harbison. 
And Mis’ Mollie said it was indelicate to give her triplets!” 

Page and Eudora laughed. 

“I think he’s mean to make fun of her!” said Delia. 

“But, honey, she’s a perfect old maid, with her thick glasses, 
and her thin mouth, and her figure, or rather her lack of one!” 

Page howled with laughter. Delia’s smile was polite. 

“Well, Page, what are you doing these days?” said Eudora. 

“Oh, same old sixes and sevens. Work, hunting some. I’m 
going fishing with Bob when he gets his vacation. And I’m in¬ 
vestigating a mighty clever invention.” How tame and indefinite 
he sounded! “I reckon I’ll have to get in this local-option fight.” 
The words conceived the resolution. 

4 

The Campbells invited Delia, Page, Lee Utley, and Mary Gale 
on a trip to Nashville to see Miss Viola Allen in “As You Like 
It.” Of course, Delia couldn’t go, but Page said that it was so 
lovely of the Campbells to ask them that he ought to go. He 
had no excuse. 






TALK 


i39 


The Humphreys went down with the Gales, and the next day 
Mrs. Humphrey called on Mrs. Reeves. 

“Faltha, isn’t that a new waist? It’s so becoming. I always 
tell the major that I wouldn’t need a style book, I could just 
watch your clothes,” began Mrs. Humphrey. “Well, I certainly 
felt sorry for the Gales, last night. But what could they expect, 
sending Mary to college? Now she’s got a purpose. Well, it ’ll 
have to do instead of a beau. The men in the Campbell party 
didn’t look at her. They didn’t even look at Miss Viola Allen, 
they couldn’t take their eyes off of Eudora Dexter!” 

“My!” said Mrs. Reeves. “I don’t see what they see in her. 
I’ve always thought red hair was common.” 

“Page certainly seemed to be enjoying himself,” Mrs. Hum¬ 
phrey continued, carefully. “He’s a very handsome boy, Faltha. 
I could hardly realize that he had a wife and child at home. He 
has wonderful lashes for a man, and still nobody could call him 
the least bit effeminate!” 

Faltha was too adept at conversational nuances not to under¬ 
stand them, and through the maze of Alice Humphrey’s flattery 
she gathered a warning. She told Delia later that wives must 
guard their husbands. Delia should not have let Page go down 
to Nashville. 

“There was no letting about it,” said Delia, shortly. 

“My! Do you let Janice crawl on the floor all the time? 
Oughtn’t she be learning to walk? Come to Dearest, darling!” 

“Sssht,” hissed Janice, moistly. 

Janice could not say Dearest, but Mrs. Reeves had rather be 
hissed at than “grannied” and she could think of no other respect¬ 
ful compromise. Still had she no gray hair, though the profusion 



140 


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demanded by nineteen four made a switch necessary for the great 
twist on her pretty neck. 

Janice’s tiny hands invariably fastened on that twist, and 
neither chide nor threat dislodged them. Nothing but force 
availed, and Mrs. Reeves had to rearrange her coiffure before 
she left the cottage. 

Faltha wasn’t as fond of Page’s child as she thought she would 
be. Of course, the child was “all Morehouse,” and a girl. Page 
should have had a son. During one of their little suppers Page 
said he wouldn’t have another baby. He “didn’t want Delia to 
suffer like that again.” Faltha knew that in reality he feared the 
expense and any addition to the discomfort he had with Janice. 

When Page got home that evening, Delia asked what Eudora 
had worn to the play. 

“Something green and kind of foamy! The prettiest dress I 
ever saw. But jjust as simple, plain as could be. Why don’t 
you wear clothes like that?” 

“Why don’t I!” Delia turned on him furiously. “WThy don’t 
you make some money to pay for them? I’d like to wear pretty 
things instead of percale wrappers to drudge in day in and day 
out! Scrimping on seven dollars and a half a week. I reckon 
I’ll have to scrimp a little extra on account of this jaunt of yours 
to Nashville.” 

“At it again! You make this a happy home. Happy to get 
away from.” 

Page went down to the Elks Club. 

Delia caught Janice from the floor and kissed her so fiercely 
that, frightened, the child began to whimper. Delia rocked her 
then until she sang drowsily. 





TALK 


141 


“‘Bobby Safto’s don to sea, 

Sibber buckles on ids knee.’ ” 

Delia worried, thinking hard, stopped rocking. Janice missed 
her rhythm. “Do on, do on,” she insisted, and Delia absently 
started the old chair going again. 

“ ‘Pease turn back to me, 

Pitty Bobby Safto.’ ” 

“Oh, Janice!” said Delia. 

But Janice was starting all over with, 

“ ‘Bobby Safto’s don to sea, 

Sibber buckles on ids knee.’ ” 

She was too absorbed to notice that her mother was crying. 

During the next two weeks Delia juggled wonderfully with the 
ledger and a cook book. She gave Page beef stews and jowl and 
greens, and fruit cobblers, which saved eggs. She made baking- 
powder biscuits with water instead of milk, and she used drippings 
instead of butter. She put her mind and soul into making these 
economies palatable. She was stinting to buy a green suit she 
had seen advertised in a rnail-order catalogue for seven-ninety- 
eight. 

For hadn’t Mrs. Merriam looked “sort of funny” about her 
not going to church? And she wanted a new suit, anyway. She 
planned about it and imaged herself in it. She couldn’t figure 
why she wanted green, though, when blue had always been her 
color. 


S 







142 


TALK 


When the suit came, she wished she hadn’t ordered a jacket 
with such a shoulder cape; it had a topheavy effect. The skirt 
was a bit tight across the hips. But the material was nice and it 
was trimmed with green silk facings. Delia’s best hat was a 
hair-braid pill box, fashionable in nineteen hundred, but in four 
years hats had grown. Delia enlarged it with puffs of green 
ribbon around the edge, and Delia was not a good milliner. 

Her first reappearance, properly clad, was to be at Doctor 
Manston’s meeting. Aunt Mandy came to stay with Janice. 

His tent was pitched in the Fifth Ward, where the local-option 
issue was primitive. Most of the saloons were in the Fifth Ward, 
which was politically and economically powerful and socially non- 
existant. The Fifth Ward was fighting for its property. 

Wet and dry went to hear Doctor Manston—the men because 
he was an orator, the women because he gave them what their 
city sisters got from matinee idols, and because “everybody went.’* 

At the last moment, Page said he couldn’t go with Delia; he 
“had to see some men.” On her way down, she peered anxiously 
,for him at the livery stable, through the windows of the Elks 
Club, and in the glassed-in lobby of the Merville House. Eudora 
was in town. 

Delia was relieved when she saw him right across from Doctor 
Manston’s tent, talking to Billy Bassett, in front of what had been 
“Billy’s.” It still had mirrored swinging doors. She didn’t know 
that he was there because of Eudora. For Page, kept out of the 
fight by the uptown elders, was determined to get into the lime¬ 
light while Eudora was there. The limelight he wanted blinded 
him as to its quality. As always, when it goaded him to action, 
it dimmed his shrewdness. 

Delia wondered if Doctor Manston would repeat his favorite 



TALK 


i 43 


text this time. '‘Blessed be the Lord my strength, which teacheth 
my hands to war and my fingers to fight.” He had taught her 
hands to war and her fingers to fight. H 6 had taught her her 
woman’s business. Exalted, she planned to tell Doctor Man- 
ston how much that text had helped her. He would understand. 

He had brought his tallyho and his English cart to Merville 
again. Aunt Mandy had seen him driving with Eudora Dexter 
and Charlie May that very morning. 

The tent was crowded. The usher, welcoming the wife of a 
man known to be “wet,” seated Delia near the platform. This 
would make it easy for her to speak to Doctor Manston after the 
meeting. If he asked her to go driving, she would certainly gol 
Aunt Mandy was always begging her to let her come and “watch 
after” Janice more. Aunt Mandy was wonderful! Strange how 
different a new suit made you feel when you haven’t had one for 
a long time—perky. She looked around, smiling and nodding at 
friends. 

Mrs. Merriam played the organ, making it the medium for 
seething, tumultuous rhythm. The tent rocked with it, the choir 
sang with it, and the audience joined in its chorus. 

“Onward, Christian soldiers, 

Marching as to war, 

With the cross of Jesus 
Going on before.” 

It became a chant, an incantation; it lost its hymnal quality. 
The striped tent, the sawdust aisles, the plank leading to the plat¬ 
form, the glittering reflectors on the kerosene lamps, the smell of 
smoke and sawdust, created an atmosphere that was profoundly 
exciting. 

The voices died away, leaving a hushed silence. 



144 


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On the platform was only a table, a pitcher of water on it, a 
bible and a bowl of violets. 

And down the sawdust aisle and up the sloping plank, through 
a craning, adoring throng, walked Doctor Manston. 

He had the poised head and the lithe body of a young Greek 
god. He had ardent violet eyes and full, sensual lips, and features 
Greek in their perfection. He wore a blue serge suit, perfectly 
tailored; a violet tie, violet socks, and his shirt was striped with 
violet. His hair, gray-white, startling against his browned skin, 
got violet shadows from the dim light. 

And slowly, surely, he stirred the emotions of that crowd. He 
rarely used a word over one syllable; he never used a comparison 
that wasn’t homely and real. He got under their skins and played 
on their nerves, and nobody could escape him. 

Pilch Trenton and Mr. Gale laughed afterward, but while they 
were in that tent they wept when he wanted them to weep. 

His appeal was fundamental. 

“Right here in this town, last Saturday night, Sam Grant got 
his pay from the ax-handle factory. Sam’s wife was sick. She’s 
had cancer. And they’ve got a little girl, such a sweet little girl, 
Nancy. Nancy’s crippled. Her foot is all twisted so she can’t 
walk right, because Sam Grant came home drunk and kicked her 
so that she fell off the porch. And little Nancy limps like this 
as she walks, walking from her mother’s bedside to the kitchen 
stove, doing all the work. And her mother, with great beads of 
sweat on her forehead from her pain, lying there, without com¬ 
plaining, telling the little girl what to do next. And when Sam 
Grant s sober he helps his little girl; when he’s drunk he beats 
her. 

They re so poor that sometimes they haven’t got enough to 



TALK 


145 


eat. Sam Grant’s wife, half dead with cancer, half starves. 
They’d have plenty if they had all Sam Grant’s pay. Last Satur¬ 
day night Sam Grant came home drunk. His wife asked him for 
money. The doctor had ordered some medicine. The Lord was 
calling that poor wife to His Kingdom. That poor wife knew it. 
But little Nancy thought her mother was going to get well. 
Every night she got down on her knees, and it was hard for 
Nancy, with her twisted foot, to get down on her knees. But she 
did it, to pray the Lord to cure her mother. The medicine was to 
let that mother die without pain. Mrs. Grant begged the doctor 
for it, so that Nancy wouldn’t know. But when she asked Sam 
for money, Sam was foul with the dregs of rum, and he said he’d 
see her in hell first. 

“But that night saw her in heaven. 

“She died in agony, with little Nancy running to her, praying, 
and running away scared. A little child watching its mother die— 
watching its mother in agony. And when the pain got so bad 
the mother had to scream. And when she screamed Sam Grant, 
that drunken sot, cursed her and hit at her, and the little crippled 
child watched and dodged, scared of her own mother, who turned 
into a writhing, suffering thing, screaming, denied the comforts 
of science—denied by the curse of rum. 

“Now there’s no harm in Sam Grant; he’s just rotten with 
alcohol. And everybody that votes to keep alcohol, votes against 
God and little Nancy and that poor suffering woman called out of 
her pain to her Maker. 

“Everybody who’s going to vote for the devil, stand up.” 

Expertly he shifted the mood and its rhythm. 

“Good! I reckon Mr. Devil’s going to get left. I reckon his 
big pitchfork will be empty. I reckon that fire and brimstone 



146 


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’ll go out if they’re ain’t any dirty bodies to feed to it. Now!” 
He came to the edge of the platform, his arms soaring, his violet 
eyes, the violet sheen on his hair, his clothes, all like one violet 
flame, fanning their emotions with his magic and his magnetism. 

“Now! Walk up the plank. Walk up the plank to God. 
Walk up the plank to God. Now! Who’s going to vote for God? 
Who’s going to vote for God?” 

The organ took up his rhythm and gave it out tumultuous with 
vibration. 

“Onward, Christian soldiers, 

Marching as to war, 

With the cross of Jesu9 
Going on before!” 

The plank shook with its weight. Quivering bodies crowded 
over it to shake hands with Doctor Manston and pledge them¬ 
selves to his God. 

Delia ached to join them. She was so moved, something in her 
longed to overflow. To walk that plank, to give herself to get 
relief. But something stronger than her longing was the thought 
that checked her. She was the wife of a man known to be “wet.” 
People would think it was funny, they would think her disloyal to 
Page, if she pledged herself to Doctor Manston. And shaking 
hands with him then meant that. 

She looked around and saw Eudora wiping her eyes. Lindley 
Campbell was twisting his mustache, looking uncomfortable and 
intensely bored. 

Delia edged along the crowd and joined them. 

“Isn’t he wonderful!” said Eudora. 

“The man’s a charlatan,” said Lindley Campbell. 



TALK 


i47 


“What difference does that make? He can get under your 

\ 

skin!” Eudora sniffled luxuriously. 

And then later, after the crowd had gone, she said to Doctor 
Manston, “Say, you could make Bill Bailey come home!” 

Doctor Manston’s violet eyes linked to Eudora’s. Men always 
looked at her like that. “Could I make you vote for prohibition 
if you were a suffragette?” 

“Nix!” Eudora winked at him. 

“Could I make you go riding to-morrow morning at ten 
o’clock?” 

“I reckon you could if you tried,” said Eudora. 

Delia turned to see Miss Junie Harbison waiting back of her. 
Miss Junie had been Leslie’s model for an old maid. Now her 
thin lips compressed against her pointed teeth, her fat lids nar¬ 
rowed behind her thick glasses. She would repeat this conversa¬ 
tion all over town, with nothing but regret for “poor Doctor 
Manston.” Men were helpless in the toils of “fast women like 
Eudora Dexter.” Again Eudora would be talked about, because 
Eudora was attractive and Miss Junie was not, thought Delia, 
remembering the drive she had had with Doctor Manston when 
he was last in Merville. Perhaps Miss Junie deserved Leslie’s 
cartoon! Delia remembered how Doctor Manston had called 
her “Miss Pretty-blue-eyes” five years ago. She wished Miss 
Junie would not stoop and smell that glass of violets, for then Miss 
Junie, delayed, would hear her speak to Doctor Manston. She 
was glad to see him again! But she wouldn’t like Miss Junie to 
be able to say anything about her. Still. . . . 

“Do you remember me, Doctor Manston?” said Delia, summon¬ 
ing her old coquetry. “We had such a charming ride behind your 



148 


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beautiful horses. And sometime I want to tell you how much 
help 

“Yes, yes,” interrupted Doctor Manston, his smile mechani¬ 
cally ardent. “You must come to the women’s meeting to-morrow 
afternoon. Women only. To-morrow afternoon at three o-clock. 
During the election. Short. Just a word of encouragement ...” 

And to Miss Junie, who came next, and somewhat confusedly 
conscious of the violet she had tucked in her bag, he said: “You 
too. To-morrow afternoon at three o’clock. And now where did 
Mrs. Campbell go? I must find Mrs. Campbell.” He fairly 
scuttled after Eudora. 

Delia felt her very neck go hot. Pain swelled in her throat. 
She must get home quick. If any one spoke to her, she would 
cry, and what would they think? Fool! Fool! Fool! she 
called herself, grinding the words out of her brain and into her¬ 
self again. Hurrying down the aisle and out of the tent, she 
turned her ankle on the soft turf in the lot, and was glad of the 
momentary twinge. Fool! Fool! Fool! With an effort she kept 
herself from muttering aloud. She’d like to bang her head against 
something. She felt so ashamed, so humiliated. She had hinted 
to Doctor Manston for a drive, and he had flung her into Miss 
Junie’s class and hurried after Eudora. Miss Junie ought to talk 
about Eudora! She was fast. She, Delia, had always taken up 
for Eudora. She wouldn’t any more. Why should she? No man 
was safe near her! No man! 

She hurried, scuffing her squeaking shoes against the newly 
fallen leaves on the pavement, past Billy Bassett’s saloon. Soon 
she’d reach the square. There was the first arc-light on the 
corner. Fshz! A finger of carbon fell and splintered. How 
violet the light was, the very color of Doctor Manston’s tie. 



TALK 


149 


Bung-pang! Bugs hitting against the glass globe. . . . Doctor 
Manston was a charlatan; Lindley Campbell was right. Char¬ 
latan! 

The square was quiet and dim. Few stores had lighted win¬ 
dows, but those were blaring, brilliant. The place was almost 
deserted and the people who passed seemed to be so quiet, like 
people in a dream, half seen. Delia was tired. How soft was 
the drip-pel, drip-lel-1-11, made by that slender stream, the foun¬ 
tain in the park! How black the water was, and the stone nymph 
so white, as were the gravel paths winding around and around! 
Delia by cutting across had saved time and escaped the chance of 
meeting friends. 

Another arc-light sent its violet beams to be quenched by the 
brilliancy of Merriam’s jewelry-store window, which glittered 
with electricity and cut glass further reflected in a mirror at the 
back. 

Oh, Delia hated Doctor Manston with his fancy clothes. Horri¬ 
fied, she caught herself hating Doctor Manston’s God. She had 
better knock on wood. 

The ledge to that brilliant window was wooden. Delia, pass¬ 
ing, paused to touch her gloved finger to it, and saw herself in 
the mirror. 

And what she saw, clearly etched in her brain, was caustic 
to her heart. As she walked on, it stayed with her. 

She had seen a worn woman in a cheap green suit that fitted 
lumpishly a lumpish figure. She had seen a hat, a faded old hair- 
braid hat, bulging horribly with puffs of green ribbon, hideously 
bright in color, garishly new. She had seen tired, dull eyes, 
sallow skin, lemon shadowed. How could she have tried to wear 
green? “Something green and kind of foamy! The prettiest 



i 5 o 


TALK 


dress I ever saw.” She had ordered green because Page liked it 
on Eudora. “Please turn back to me ; pitty Bobby Safto!” 
Janice hadn’t sung it right, anyway: it’s “Please come back and 
marry me!” Janice was old enough to get it right! 

Old! She had seen an old woman in that mirror. The mouth 
had drooped and there were lines at its sides, and lines about the 
eyes, too. The light had been cruel, different from soft yellow 
gas, and in the daytime the glass over her dresser was shaded 
by the maple tree outside. Why, she wasn’t thirty years old! 

Mountain women aged in their twenties, she had heard. Their 
lives were so hard. They cooked and washed and cleaned, day 
in and day out, as did those country women she had pitied in her 
store, county-court day, four years ago. Oh! She held her hands, 
clenched. The rough skin of them scratched against the gloves. 
She had become as they had been. No! No! No! Nobody 
could change like that in four years. It wasn’t possible. That 
was one of those distorted mirrors like they have in sideshows at 
the circus. It wasn’t true. 

How steep Hill Street was! How hard to climb! Well, she 
had passed Charlie May’s house. Charlie May was still young 
and pretty, and she had two children, and another coming. 
Charlie May was just her age. Of course that mirror was a 
trick mirror! 

She wondered if Janice had gone right to sleep for Aunt Mandy. 
No matter how tired she was, Janice’s prattle would awaken her 
in the morning. She mustn’t resent Janice! Reaching for the 
wooden paling of a fence to knock on, she stumbled over a ridge 
in the pavement. Uneasily she peered to see whether she had 
scraped her shoe. Oh, it was miserable to be poor, to think of 



TALK 


151 

every day in terms of to-morrow, to be denied the luxury of a 
second’s irresponsibility! 

She was nearly home. At the top of the hill was the horizon, 
deep-blue frosty sky stabbed with cold white stars. The rocky 
street, ending there, seemed to sink into nothingness, an eternity 
looming before her, between dim black trees on either side. 
Delia stared. Breath left her chest and choked into her throat. 
She was suddenly afraid. What was beyond? She shivered. 
Silly, she called herself; the Nashville Pike, of course! 

No matter what she felt, she had to tell Aunt Mandy good¬ 
night and to greet Page. 

Page was exultant. “Delia, I’ve got a big job for to-morrow! 
I’ve got the voting certificates of two hundred citizens of the 
Commonwealth of Kentucky right here in this pasteboard receipt 
book. We were afraid to leave them at headquarters overnight.” 

“Who’s we? And what are you going to do with them?” asked 
Delia, dully. 

He didn’t answer her first question. “I’m going to keep them 
safe, and give ’em out at the polls to-morrow. Got to be there 
at six. Don’t forget to wake me, Delia.” 

Nobody could vote without a certificate, and it was customary 
for each political party to buy and collect them. This prevented 
their accidental loss, or their destruction by the dry wives of wet 
voters. And since everybody’s sentiments were known, no rever¬ 
sions in the privacy of the voting booth were risked. If a dry 
sold his certificate to the wets (and vice versa), his certificate 
disappeared, and he could not vote at all. But Page had the cer¬ 
tificates of well-known wets for safekeeping, arranged in alpha¬ 
betical order for distribution. “I’ve got the election right here!” 
he bragged. 




152 


TALK 


He had been too absorbed in his own importance to notice 
Delia’s new suit. When he did notice it, he struck an attitude. 
He was so happy that he wanted to be funny. “Ha! what have 
we here?” he proclaimed, theatrically. 

“‘The Night is mother of the Day, 

The Winter of the Spring, 

And ever upon old Decay 
The greenest mosses cling.’” 

It was the first quotation with green in it that sprang into his 
mind. But it didn’t sound right. At first he thought and hoped 
that Delia hadn’t heard him. 

She was staring into the mirror over the dresser. Merriam’s 
mirror was no trickster; it was only better lighted than her own. 
What was Page saying? Lopg after he had spoken his words 
came to her. 

“Delia honey! Don’t look like that. ... I didn’t mean . . . 
What’s the matter with you? Honestly . . . You remember that 
poem by Whittier, in the Third Reader,” he babbled. 

“You didn’t mean what?” she said, levelly. 

“Anything! Come on, Delia. Let’s get to bed, honey. I’ve 
got to get up early.” 

“I! I! I! That’s all you care about,” she broke out. “Your¬ 
self and your jokes and your food and your pleasure. What are 
you, anyhow? What have you ever done? Except to wear me 
out, cooking and cleaning and saving for you! You’re nothing 
but a charlatan!” 

“There’s no use talking to you in this mood,” said Page, hurt, 
but not too hurt to place the receipt book under his pillow, to feel 
that it would be uncomfortable, and then to place it carefully 
under his shirts in the bureau drawer. 



TALK 


iS3 


“Not a bit of use! You never could talk to anybody who’s 
telling the truth. You’re not interested in the truth. It isn’t 
funny enough for you!” 

Then they had to get into the same bed together. But that 
night they broke a cardinal principle of their marriage. For the 
first time they slept without “making up.” 

* 

When Delia saw Page with Billy Bassett he had been offering 
his services to the Fifth Ward crowd. They worked with Squire 
Preston and his cronies, but their methods were less subtle. And 
since uptown wouldn’t let Page play, he would play with down¬ 
town before he would stay out of the game. 

And when he came out of the cottage on election day an escort 
awaited at his gate. He wheeled and ran to the back entrance, 
and there was a similar escort. He was surrounded by a hundred 
and fifty dancing, jumping, swaying children, marshaled by the 
Woman’s Temperance League. A sea of infantile humanity 
eddied about him. 

Down the street they pushed; they followed; they led. He 
tried to get away, but he couldn’t take a step to escape without 
hurting a child. At the square, Mrs. Merriam and Mrs. Hen¬ 
derson, carrying their banners, joined them, and the children 
began to sing, 

“Onward, Christian soldiers, 

Marching as to war.” 

The fantastic procession reached the livery stable, and the 
Squire and Pilch Trenton tried to rescue Page and his receipt 




*54 


TALK 


book, but it couldn’t be done. The children, excited, singing, 
giggling, dancing, hugged their prey. They caught hold of his 
coat, they grabbed at his pockets. One little golden-hair in a 
pink dress stuck a hatpin in his arm. A little boy in short tan 
trousers hit him with a pebble from his slingshot. 

Les Henderson, who was down to cover the election for the 
Louisville Planet, said, “It’s a regular Gulliver’s Travels!” And 
the crowd at the livery stable, since they couldn’t help Page, 
laughed at his plight. 

Every door, every window on the square framed somebody who 
was watching Gulliver’s travels. The business of the town 
stopped. 

At first Page was angry, and then he was concerned. Those 
children would not let him get near the Fifth Ward voting pre¬ 
cinct. If he didn’t get there, two hundred wet voters would be 
voteless. But Page had a sense of humor. The situation was 
funny and he was the center of it. That was some consolation; 
and nobody could blame him for it, it wasn’t his fault. 

He couldn’t get rid of the receipt book. 

Mrs. Merriam was prepared for every emergency. Where the 
little girls couldn’t follow him, the little boys did. Wherever he 
went, whatever his excuse, enough of his escort surrounded him. 
Mrs. Mollie had even prepared his dinner for him, in a box tied 
with a great white bow^ 

The polls closed at four o’clock without those two hundred 
votes. 

And the drys won the election by a hundred and fifty votes. 

The Fifth Ward blamed Page for bungling. They couldn’t tell 
him what he could have done, but the fact remained that the 



TALK 


election was lost through him. Squire Preston said to Billy Bas¬ 
sett: 

“I told you so. He’s erratic. It doesn’t pay to fool with him. 
Didn’t I tell you what he did after Goebel was killed?” 

And afterward, when the children saw Page, they shouted, 
“Hel-lo, Gulliver-r-r! ” 

Page’s laugh was only throat deep. He squirmed at the thought 
of having bungled, when he wanted to conquer. It wasn’t his 
fault, but politicians counted results, and the results were irrev¬ 
ocable. And Eudora was in Merville. 

Delia forgot their quarrel and taunted him: “Why did you 
do such a thing! What did you have anything to do with Billy 
Bassett for? Fifth Warders! What could you expect? Oh, you 
could have managed! You’re the laughing stock of Merville.” 

All that day Delia had struggled with her desire to give that 
green suit away. Such luxurious gestures were not for her; 
she had to keep it and wear it. All day she had smarted over 
the memory of what she had said to Doctor Manston. All day 
she had dodged mirrors lest she see herself. And Page was 
responsible for everything. Taking it out on him was a panacea, 
and so she taunted him. 

And then Billy Fletcher eloped with sixteen-year-old Evelyn 
Humphrey and everybody but Delia and Page and Billy Bassett 
forgot Gulliver’s travels, until Les Henderson swung the town back 
on Page again. 

For the Louisville Planet , Les had drawn Page, stressing the 
Jesuit priest look in him, stressing his physical beauty. He held 
the receipt book as if it were a prayerbook. A mass of adorable 
curly-headed youngsters surrounded him. And beyond the 
temperance banners a group of eager wet voters stretched forth 



X S6 


TALK 


empty hands, while dry voters surged to the polls. Les called 
the cartoon “Gulliver’s Travels.” 

It portrayed the humor, the color, the sentimentality and the 
corruption of Southern politics. It was copied in the National 
Digest , and through it Leslie got his position on the New York 
Sphere. 

Merville deplored the way Leslie made fun of local characters. 
He had neither feeling nor loyalty. But, “It was a damned 
clever cartoon! That rascal can get away with anything.” 

Again some children followed Page up the street, yelling, 
“Hel-lo, Gulliver-r-r! ” 

He saw Eudora coming toward him in that wonderful green 
suit of hers, her hair like vivid flame under her picture hat. He 
cringed, hoping she wouldn’t hear that hateful refrain. 

But she said: “Hel-lo, Gulliver-r-r! Well, you have been the 
excitement! Wasn’t it fun? We watched you from our upstairs 
window. It’s so Mervillish, it couldn’t have happened anywhere 
else! You made a stunning Gulliver. Wasn’t the old one kind of 
fat? Anyway, it was darned funny!” 

For one second Page was affronted. Then he realized that had 
she consoled him she would have considered him needful of con¬ 
solation. Instead, she didn’t take it seriously, she turned his hurt 
into badinage, she tried to heal it with sunlight. 

They walked uptown together, careless of observant eyes on 
every corner. 

“I’m going back to New York to-night,” she said. “Are you 
sorry?” 

And Page, the eloquent, only nodded his head. He didn’t, 
he couldn’t say anything. 



TALK 


157 


4 

He went home to face Delia, She was furious at Page for mak¬ 
ing a fool of himself and at Leslie for immortalizing the occasion. 
She was furious at a world that advances one person at the 
expense of another. Les owed his education to that bloomer- 
girl cartoon of her, his prize to Miss Junie Harbison’s old-maid¬ 
ishness, and now this position to Page’s blunder. 

Page’s shrewdness (dimmed only by his love of limelight) made 
him see that Merville would talk about the cartoon and the job 
it got Leslie instead of talking about him. 

But Delia nagged him, “What did you do it for!” 

And finally Page burst out: “I had to do something. IVe 
sacrificed my life for you; remember, I’d have had the railroad 
work if it hadn’t been for your father. And when I tried tc 
get on my feet you neglected the water filter and gave me typhoid 
to get me out of things for a while!” 

Delia went out of the room. She couldn’t even slam the door, 

for fear of waking Janice. 

She wanted to get away. 

She went in the bathroom and sat on the edge of the tub. 

Page was mean! This wasn’t the first time he had thrown 
the railroad work up to her. She might have asked him if she 
were responsible for his political exploits. That Goebel speech, 
for instance. She knew he would reproach her for that water 
filter, though he had been so noble before Doctor Emery. 

Oh, she wanted to go away! 

But how and where, and what could she do? She had known 




158 


TALK 


how to ran a store, but she couldn’t start another one. She had 
no money, and nobody to help her. And she had Janice. 

She wasn’t as strong as she was before Janice came. She was 
always tired. How could she start out alone in the world? She 
couldn’t take Janice with her, and she couldn’t leave her with 
Page and his mother. Rather not I 
How cold and uncomfortable was the edge of the tub. But 
to fetch a chair would be ridiculous. Yet, she couldn’t sit there 
on the edge of the tub all night! 

What was the future to be? Drabness. Well, she could live on 
in Janice’s life. Watching isn’t living, when you’re still young. 
And Janice might not want her to live in her life. Nonsense! 
She was Janice’s mother! Her own mother! That was a ridicu- 
lous idea. 

Now she had to go into the room where Page was. Page knew 
she was helpless, that she was beholden to him for everything, 
and that she had nobody to turn to. Oh, there was something 
wrong about marriage! 

Later that night she prayed that God would forgive her for 
such thoughts about His sacred institution. Where would the 
world be without marriage? 

4 

After Page received his eleventh copy of Leslie’s cartoon in the 
mail, and heard the thirteenth joke about it, it began to get on 
his nerves. He wanted some change to escape from it. 

His mother had tactfully avoided the subject. As her comfort 
became more important, in her negation she became a comfort. 



TALK 


i59 


Unpleasantness disturbed her and she avoided it. She had real¬ 
ized that as time went on she would need friends, intimacies, 
for entertainment, and to keep them easily she must curb her 
sharp tongue. 

And to her Page first spoke of Highview. 

What he called Highview was known as Sassafras Hill. It was 
near the old Confederate fort out on the Louisville Pike, over¬ 
grown with sassafras and underlaid with stone. But Page defied 
its sterility and dreamed of a new “residential district , 5 dotted 
with bungalows, which would be replaced gradually by mansions 
as the town grew. 

“This isn’t small beer like that combination folding-bed-book- 
case-desk. That wasn’t worth my while,” he said (it wasn’t worth 
anybody’s while. When the bed folded, the desk jammed; when 
the bed unfolded, the glass doors crashed). “Why, most of 
the great American fortunes have been founded on real estate! 
Look at the Astors!” 

“That’s true, Page,” said Faltha Reeves. “Let me see, wasn’t 
it at the Astor House in New York that Mrs. Gale had that 
whipped-cream dressing she told me about? On fruit salad. 
Now I wonder whether it ought to be made with lemon or 
vinegar. But I certainly have always heard that the Astors 
made their money on real estate!” 

Let his wife discourage Page from this newest venture. Dis¬ 
couragement was not his mother’s role. In fact, he had no money 
for it, and Faltha couldn’t lend him any. The purchase of an 
annuity had provided her with a safe income and an insurance 
against such contingencies. 

But Page made his plans before he told Delia. ^ 

The old house at Highview could be lived in while the “addi- 



i6o 


TALK 


tion” developed. Major Humphrey owned the property and he 
claimed that “in five years the trolley would be running out 
there!” 

The major had set the town agog the week before when he 
walked around the square with the beautiful Emmeline, who 
was visiting her sister, Mrs. Fletcher. Everybody suspected 
“things” about the major and the beautiful Emmeline, and 
opinion was torn between, “Well, what do you think! I saw 
Major Humphrey walking around the square with Emmeline 
Hunter! and, “Well, he certainly has plenty of nerve!” in a 
tone of admiration for the latter. 

The beautiful Emmeline had resigned the major to the idea 
°f a second married daughter, since the new son-in-law, Billy 
Fletcher, was her nephew. And Mr. Fletcher, after disinheriting 
the young elopers, promised to buy them a home. The major’s 
daughter Evelyn liked the color of the little gray cottage on Hill 
Street; the major liked its location. And since Page had no cash, 
he could sell the little gray cottage and buy Highview. 

The deed to the cottage was in Page’s name (Delia had given 
it to him) but he couldn’t sell it without her signature. 

And when he told her, just as he expected, she refused to go 
to Highview. 

It s bad enough not to be able to go any place because I’ve 
got so much cooking and cleaning to do. I can at least see some 
life from the window! And the girls can drop in to say howdy. 
What do you want to be buried in the country for?” 

Page brought a sofa pillow and put it at Delia’s back. 

He thought he wanted to tie up his image of a loving husband 
with his reality. But the effort was so mechanical that it irri¬ 
tated Delia. She thought he wanted to influence her. She threw 



TALK 


161 


the pillow on the floor, and Janice, who listened gravely to their 
quarrels, thought this was play, and, gurgling, threw it back 
again. 

“ Charlie May could come out to see you, now they’ve got 
their automobile,” Page went on. 

“I didn’t know they had an automobile. Why, they haven’t 
got a cook!” 

“Charlie May says she’d rather do her own work and get the 
fun out of a car.” 

“Oh!” 

“Delia, I would have told you before if I’d thought you’d have 
minded. But it’s all arranged. You’re to sign the deed this 
afternoon.” 

“And suppose I won’t sign it?” 

“That would be a pretty how-do-you-do! It would show that 
you haven’t any faith in my business judgment. And if a wife 
can’t trust her husband, how can she expect any one else to? It 
seems to me that you’ve done enough to make things hard for 
me!” 

“I won’t sign it.” She caught Janice up into her lap and began 
to rock violently. 

Page went to the telephone on the wall. 

“What are you going to do?” 

“Tell the major.” 

Delia rocked so hard that the old chair jumped. 

Page rang the telephone bell round and round. He took up 
the receiver. He stood so that Delia couldn’t see that he held his 
hand on the hook, deadening the phone. 

“Forty-two. ... Is Major Humphrey there? . . . Hello, Ma¬ 
jor! I’m sorry. I don’t know how to tell you, but our deal’s off. 



TALK 


162 


... I know it was settled. I . . . know. It isn’t my fault, 
Major. My wife. . . 

But Delia caught his arm. “Page, tell him it’s all right. I’ll 
sign the thing. Mis’ Alice’d say all over town that. . . .” 



Book Three 

High view 



At first Delia hated Highview. 

The yellow frame house, square, two storied, had a narrow 
staircase separating the dining room from the parlor, which 
looked out on a small square side porch. Neither beautifully 
Colonial nor cheerily Benjamin Harrison, it was unlike the usual 
Kentucky dwelling. The yard, save for sassafras and one lone 
peach tree in the back, was bare. 

Nor had Highview the aspect of Kentucky scenery. There 
were no spreading, genial maples, no sheltering beeches, no pop¬ 
lars or honeysuckle hedges, no blue-green grass. The property 
started at the crest of a hill which was covered with slabs of 
limestone and patches of red clay. Gaunt pines and stunted 
cedars clutched at a meager sustenance. Pale white mushrooms 
and dark moss grew at their roots. Merville’s rare north wind 
shrilled there. And legend had it that a negro had been hung 
near the old Confederate fort. 

In the beginning, when Page went to town of evenings to the 
Elks Club, Delia, alone with Janice, was afraid. She laughed 
bravely to Mrs. Reeves. “I don’t believe in ghosts, but I’m 
afraid of them.” Eventually she got over her tremors. She 
had to. 

And Page was busy with hunting and fishing. He had his 
baseball umpiring, his perfunctory practice, and “sure things” 
to pursue. 

Delia had her household tasks. For years she had cooked and 
cleaned. Inevitably, she formed working habits which at once 

165 


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166 


eased her tasks and made her seem to forget her resentment of 
them. Janice, growing older, needed less physical care. When 
she learned to comb her own hair, Delia with that time released 
began to polish the drinking glasses where before she had only 
washed them. Delia’s creative energy, frustrated in its natural 
outlet, which was business, gradually went into the only outlet 
she had. Very gradually it began to put some fervor into her 
care of the house at Highview. 

She was isolated there. It was too far for her friends to 
“drop in to say howdy.” But she got used to loneliness. She 
heard town news from Aunt Mandy when she brought the wash, 
from Mrs. Reeves, who came out occasionally, and from Janice. 

Janice, at school now, was popular. She rarely wanted her 
own way, but when she did she got it. Her best friend, Charline 
Fletcher, Charlie May’s daughter, could never stand against her. 

Should Charline say, “If you don’t let me play with the doll 
buggy Drist gave you Christmas, I won’t come out to play with 
you to-morrow.” 

“All right,” Janice would answer, “I was just thinking of a 
little game I’d like to play by myself, anyway.” 

Charline, conquered, would beg, “Oh, Janice, what is it?” 

The children adored the old Confederate fort and Janice 
capitalized its sinister quality. 

And one broiling day in midsummer when Janice was seven, 
Delia missed three dining room chairs. Seven years ago Delia 
would have rejoiced at having, by some miracle, fewer chairs to 
dust. Now it seemed urgent that those chairs be dusted, and 
inner doubts as to that urgency only angered her. Then from 
a second-story window she saw the chairs in the old fort. 

She hurried out for them, and as she approached, unseen, she 



TALK 


167 


saw Janice and Charline both seated. In front of them, on the 
third chair, sat Charline’s little brother Gregory. 

Delia could hear Janice: “Now we’re going across the prairies. 
Ooh, listen to the wind in those pine trees! Ooh! it’s so cold! 
Look! It’s beginning to snow. Aren’t you glad we’re in this 
mover’s wagon, Charline, and not out in the cold, cold, cold, 
where the driver is?” 

Little Greggy was the driver. 

“Ooooh, Greggy, come right in here with us! You’ll catch 
your death of cold!” cried Charline. 

“Children!” said Delia, “you’ll ruin my dining room chairs. 
How dared you take them out without asking me! They’ll blister 
in this hot sun. It’s too hot for you all out here, anyway. Come 
in the house, where it’s nice and cool.” 

Janice set her pert little mouth in a straight line. She looked 
away from Delia. Obeying, she lifted her chair. She had the 
curiously set expression on her small face that always came there 
when her mother and father quarreled. She shrugged her tiny 
shoulders. 

“Come on, Charline, come, Greggy,” said she; “ ’at’s fine. 
We’ll play that the dining room is a mover’s tent.” 

But Delia hadn’t finished cleaning the dining room, so they had 
to use the side porch. 

* 

Two years passed, and still the square frame house was the 
only house at Highview. Page lost no faith in it. Every time a 
“sure thing” went wrong, he bought a few additional acres; every 
time Eudora Dexter visited Merville he bought a few. His was 



TALK 


168 


almost a madness, a lust for owning land. He liked to look out 
and think, “As far as I can see is mine! I own all that!” 

Delia learned to recognize and dread that happy, pompous 
posture, for afterward he always schemed to buy more Highview. 

She would say, “The only way you could make a living out of 
this place would be to raise cabbages and live on the stalks!” 

Opposing him only aroused his antagonism and increased his 
enthusiasm. When she complained about the weather, he de¬ 
fended it. When he deplored the recent merging of the Northern 
and Southern factions of their church, she defended it. Every 
rag was a red rag; they contended over everything. And they 
were at that stage in marriage when quarrels were not patched up. 
They would say scathing things to each other, forget them, and 
argue about Doctor Cook’s discovery of the North Pole, or 
whether they should make a trip to the new motion-picture 
theater, for it was nineteen ten. 

These trips were rare for Delia because they meant a long 
walk to town after a hard day. They meant taking Janice and 
tiring her. 

It was after one of them that Delia opened her eyes, rubbed 
them, and closed them again. What was the use of going to 
town when it only tired you for the next day? 

Delia had dreamed that Eudora Dexter was dead. Clearly, 
she had seen the funeral, and Squire Preston was a pall-bearer, 
as he would have been in reality. Delia had even seen his 
stricken face. He was a popular pall-bearer because he mourned 
so well. 

Delia realized that she must not tell that dream before break¬ 
fast, for dreams, told before breakfast, came true. 

She stretched her aching feet. 



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169 


No doubt she had dreamed about Eudora on account of Leslie 
Henderson’s letter, which Mrs. Mollie had brought out to show 
her the day before. He had described a dinner party at Eudora’s 
new home and mentioned what a “peach of a kid” little Lindley 
was. 

And Delia saw so few people that she was glad when Mrs. 
Mollie called. Delia didn’t go to town in the daytime. She had 
neither time nor energy for the walk, and she didn’t want people 
to see the way she had to dress. For that same reason she 
didn’t go to church. Then, too, Page liked a big dinner on 
Sunday, and if she went to church in the morning, who would 
cook it? 

She knew that Mrs. Merriam thought her not going was funny, 
though Doctor Vaughn seemed to understand. When she got a 
new dress she’d go to Mrs. Merriam and explain so that Mrs. 
Merriam wouldn’t criticize her! 

Every time Eudora Dexter came to Merville, she came out to 
see Delia. And every time Eudora came to Highview, Page 
was there. He would put sofa cushions in her chair and look at 
her as if he couldn’t take his eyes away. . . . 

Now Page was asleep at Delia’s side, and yet how far apart 
they were! She would never know whether he and Eudora. . . . 
Nonsense! It couldn’t have been more than a silly flirtation. 
Such things don’t happen to your own husband. 

How queer it was that you could live with a person intimately, 
and know nothing of his thoughts. And nobody knew yours, 
either. Save for that mysterious fusing magic she had felt during 
Page’s courtship and her first year of marriage, she had always 
been and would always be alone. She didn’t want to be alone. 
She turned her head from side to side on the pillow. It was so 



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lonely being alone! Nobody to lean on, nobody to under¬ 
stand. . . . 

Of course there was Janice growing up. Janice would share 
everything with her. She could live on in Janice’s life. . . . 

It was time to get up. Janice must be dressed for school, if 
she should go to school. She had sneezed on the way home last 
night. Oh, why had they gone to that motion-picture theater to 
see a lot of cowboys chase horses across a sheet? It wasn’t 
worth the bother and the risk of Janice’s catching cold. Delia 
always winced when Janice sneezed. Measles began with a 
cold. Janice had had measles. But scarlet fever . . . pneu¬ 
monia. . . . Janice had been looking peaked about the eyes. . . . 

Page never worried about anything. Time had been kind to 
him, and night and morning he rubbed tonic on his hair, though 
it needed none. Night and morning he exercised with dumb¬ 
bells and a set of gymnasium pulleys attached to the back hall. 

Though Delia thought it cruel to deprive any one of sleep she 
stared at Page. She didn’t know that it maddened him to wake 
up every morning and find her gaze fixed on him. 

She slid to the flo or a nd into her blue-sateen bedroom slippers 
which slimpsed down in folds over the heels. She hadn’t mended 
the rent in her kimono, which was cheap flowered silk woven 
in parallel lines that tore easily. 

“Ou-aw! Ou-aw!” Page, hands clenched, stretched his arms 
outward. He did that every morning. 

What’s it doing out?” He asked that every morning. 

“ ’S all right. Sun’s shining.” 

Delia arranged her hair in a bun at the back of her neck. 
There was no use fussing over it; nobody would see her. 



TALK 


171 

“Ou-aw! Ou-aw! I reckon I’d better get up!” Page bounded 
out of bed. 

“I had the awfulest dream last night! I dreamed Eudora 
Dexter was dead. Oh, I won’t tell you the rest! Mustn’t tell 
it before breakfast.” 

“Say, how about breakfast?” called Page from the bathroom, 
above the sli-slp-slp of his razor strop. 

“I’ll have it in plenty of time. I just can’t hurry this 
morning. If you knew how my head aches. . . .” 

“Don’t tell me this means another doctor’s bill.” 

How she had resented the first time he said that! 

“The trouble with you women is, you think too much about 
yourselves. Not enough to think about.” 

“Is that so?” 

The last time Page said that, she had told him what she 
did think about; the next time she would add some details, but 
this morning she had a headache and she was straining to get 
that old serge skirt fastened. Too tight of waistband, it had to 
be hiked up with a safety pin. 

In the kitchen sink she found the dessert dishes unwashed 
from supper the night before. How terrible they looked with 
globs of lemon jelly on them! Page had made her leave the dishes 
lest they miss the show. She wouldn’t do that again. Next time 
he could go alone. It was bad enough to take a child out in the 
night air, but to leave dishes in a mess. . . . Suppose somebody 
took sick in the night and a doctor came and had to go to the 
kitchen for something? What would he think? 

Then while Delia was grinding coffee, she remembered her plan. 

Months past, Mrs. Gale had told her about the small library 
that the Woman’s Civic Club managed in the city hall. Members 



172 


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served in turn as librarian. Charlie May, who had three children 
and did her own work, spent three afternoons a week there and 
Mrs. Gale wanted Delia to join the club and give it one afternoon. 
When Delia shook her head, Mrs. Gale, who knew her problems, 
said that she had found a fireless cooker that cooked good, tasty 
food. She produced a recipe for a stew with com and tomatoes 
in it, flavored with garlic. 

Page could have the stew for supper, one night a week. 

But the fireless cooker cost fifteen dollars and Delia would 
need a new dress. 

One afternoon away from Highview, amid people, playing a 
part in things, would be such fun! It would be nice to be around 
books again, though she had read little these ten years. She 
thought she disliked books now, that they were a waste of time. 
She must have been mistaken about herself. 

Page should know nothing until he had tasted and approved the 
stew. He would like it. Delia’s one certainty in regard to Page 
was what he liked to eat. 

And since Mrs. Gale’s visit Delia had saved fifteen dollars for 
the cooker and five for material for a new dress. She had slashed 
corners. Though she sewed awkwardly she had made Janice’s 
fall clothes herself. 

Alone, she would slip the ledger from its hiding place under 
her wedding veil on the wardrobe shelf. She would gloat over 
that hard-won balance. She had kept the ledger from Page; it 
had been her first secret from him. It remained her one clutch 
at privacy. For while her inward isolation was hard, the intimacy 
of their outward lives was harder. 

She went to awaken Janice, a fragile blond child, who slept 
with her mouth open. Doctor Emery said her adenoids must be 



TALK 


i 73 


removed. Aside from the expense (Delia would not economize 
on doctors’ bills), it seemed wicked to operate on a well child. 
Delia had been putting it off from year to year. 

“Moth-er!” Janice’s sudden awakening never failed to startle. 
“I don’t want to go to school to-day . . . pi . . . ease. . . 
The child had learned to crinkle her nose and sniff at the same 
time to make herself sneeze. She sneezed now. 

“Oh, Jan, don’t tell me you’re getting another cold! Maybe 
you’d better stay home. It’s such a long walk to town. And 
this weather, hot one minute and cold the next. . . . Stay here 
and keep out of the sun, darling.” 

“Yes’m. Moth-er, d’y know what? All the girls at school are 
wearing long-waisted dresses. Charline Fletcher says nobody’s 
wearing short-waisted dresses, and you made mine all short!” 

“Then she’s wrong, isn’t she? Somebody is wearing them 
short! Hurry now, breakfast is almost ready.” 

Janice was at the table before her father was. Delia couldn’t 
understand why Page had to brush his trousers for ten minutes, 
when he had to walk down that dusty pike, anyway. 

“Mother, mother! I’m absomolutely starving!” 

“In a minute.” 

Delia hurried into the dining room with a bowl of farina for 
Janice, just as Page took his seat. 

“I-don’t-want-farina. I-won’t-eat-it.” Janice banged her spoon 
on her plate to emphasize her ultimatum. 

“Please. Eat it for mother. It’s such good farina.” 

Delia brought a platter of pork-sausage patties, and Janice 
said, “Um!” and took two. 

“Now, Janice, you know Doctor Emery doesn’t want you 

to. . . 



i 74 


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“Delia, can’t we have one meal in peace? Let the child eat 
what she wants. Biscuits, please.” 

“All right. If she gets sick it’s your fault!” 

They exchanged a cool glare. Janice watched them. 

Delia felt the little pulse beside her right eyebrow beating, 
beating, beating. She was out of everything. How could she 
know that children weren’t wearing high-waisted dresses any 
more? She couldn’t afford more clothes for Janice. She had 
twenty dollars. How tired she was! 

“What’s the matter with you?” said Page. “You’re as cheerful 
as a crutch.” 

“My head aches.” 

Sometimes Page thought Delia had those headaches to annoy 
him. And when she had no headache she had a backache. 

“Do y’know what,” said Janice, “I heard that Mis’ Eudora 
Dexter was studying dancing at the Cosmopolitan Theater in 
New York. I don’t know whether it’s barefoot dancing or not, 
but it’s something like that. She’s studying with the ballet, and 
they only let her because she does it just wonderful.” 

“Dancing!” said Page and Delia in unison. 

“Uh-huh.” Janice was delighted with her effect. “I heard 
she worked over exercises and things for two hours every day. 
And Charline says her mother told Mrs. Merriam there was 
something funny about it. Charline says she reckons she’s having 
an affinity. All the swell society people in New York are having 
affinities. Anyway, Charline says her mother says she wouldn’t 
be surprised if there wasn’t a divorce in that family.” 

“I never heard of a woman in Eudora’s position studying danc¬ 
ing with a ballet. Are you sure it isn’t some lessons about leading 
cotillions or something like that?” 



TALK 


i 75 


“ Charline says her mother thought that at first, but a cousin 
of Charline’s mother’s, in New York, wrote that Mis’ Eudora 
isn’t at home to callers in the afternoons any more, because she 
goes to the Cosmopolitan Theater. And Major Humphrey bet 
Mr. Lee Utley five dollars that there’ll be a divorce before the 
year’s over, and Charline says her mother says if there is, no 
one in Merville ’ll receive Mis’ Eudora, . . 

‘That will do, Janice! Children shouldn’t talk about such 
things. The idea!” 

A thin layer of coral color spread over Page’s clear skin. Delia 
watched it. Divorce! Nice people didn’t get divorces! 

“Page, will you tell me the exact time? I think my clock’s 
five minutes fast.” 

“All right. I don’t see what you want with the exact time. 
Reminds me of the nigger in jail calling out to Jake Jenkins to 
know the time. And Jake said, ‘What you want to know fo’? 
You ain’t goin’ nowheres.’ Ha-hugh! Ha-hugh!” 

Delia’s sigh caught in her throat. 

“Oh, don’t take everything on yourself. Where’s your sense 
of humor gone?” he patted her shoulder and departed. 

That first year, how his touch had thrilled her! Then, later, 
it had irritated her. Now it affected her no more than the 
touch of one of those breakfast dishes she was washing. She 
must make Janice realize that it’s no use to look for thrills; 
they wouldn’t last. She wanted Janice to marry a man as rich 
as Lindley Campbell, who would give her automobiles and fine 
clothes and servants. And all she’d have to do would be to 
enjoy them! 

How tired Delia got of Page’s jokes. He’d stop in at the Mer- 



176 


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ville House, where everybody loafed now, and tell that to the 
crowd, instead of going to his office where he belonged. 

She certainly would enjoy the relief of getting away to that 
library one day a week! 

Janice came out to the kitchen to help her wipe the dishes. 

“Y’know what? Marion Utley told Charline she oughtn’t to 
say anything about long-waisted dresses to me, when everybody 
knew we couldn’t afford to keep in style.” 

“She did!” 

“Uh-huh. And Charline said she wouldn’t ’a’ said it, if she 
hadn’t heard Phillipa Merriam laughing about how my neck line 
came mighty near being my waist line. And Charline is my best 
friend and she thought I ought to know what Phillipa had said. 
And, anyway,” Janice added, “long waists would be more becom¬ 
ing to me.” 

“Phillipa Merriam was laughing at your clothes, was she!” 

“Yes’m,” sighed Janice. 

Delia put down the dishcloth and dried her hands. 

“Darling, mother won’t have them laughing at her precious 
girl. Mother ’ll manage. Mother ’ll see that you get some new 
clothes, made right, that nobody could criticize!” 

Her child should not suffer! Rather that she should give up 
her one bright afternoon. And instead of feeling gloomy, she 
was happy. She was stirred, she had a deep voluptuous thrill, 
the thrill of sacrifice. 

“Really!” Janice jumped up and down. “Oh, goody, goody, 
gander! You are the darlingest mother!” 

I want you to feel, Jan dear, that you can come to your 
mother about anything. Mother ’ll always understand.” 

“Honestly?” Jan’s tiny heart-shaped face, with its tip-tilted 




TALK 


177 


features quieted, turned serious. “Mother, will you tell me 
something if I ask you?” 

“Why, certainly, dear.” 

Delia sat down on a kitchen chair and drew Janice, nine-year- 
older, into her lap, hugging her close. For once mother and child 
were at one, without hostility, with fondest love. 

Jan hid her face against Delia’s waist. Delia pressed her 
lips against that sweetest place to kiss a child, the back of her 
neck, so young and dear it was! 

“Mother”—Janice lowered her voice to a whisper—“Charline 
said that babies were cut right out of their mothers’ stomachs 
with a knife down the middle. Is it true?” The child shivered. 

Delia drew away. 

“No! It isn’t true! I don’t want to hear another word! 
You mustn’t listen to another word like that! I’ll speak to 
Charline’s mother. The idea. I’m surprised! Children thinking 
about such things! I’m ashamed of you, Janice. Now get up. 
It’s nasty to talk about such things.” 

“I’ll never forgive you if you tell Mis’ Charlie May! The 
others said you couldn’t ask mothers things. But we want to 
know.” 

“You’ll never forgive your mother? That’s a nice way to talk. 
Now listen. I won’t say anything to Charline’s mother if you 
promise me never to mention such things again. You’ll know 
enough when it’s time for you to know.” 

“But how can it hurt to know now?” 

“It hurts you and it hurts your mother! Every time you say 
a word like that, you can just think that you’re hurting your 
mother. And I sacrifice everything for you. Now run along, 
Janice. I have work to do.” 



i 7 8 


TALK 


Janice slid to her feet. 

After she left, Delia realized that, though bone of her bone 
and flesh of her flesh, she didn’t know what her own child 
was thinking or hearing or saying. And those questions had horri¬ 
fied and embarrassed Delia. She had actually felt sickish and 
weak of knee. For memories of her early ecstasies with Page, 
memories of her glorious surrender to him, were repugnant 
memories now. Now, relations between herself and Page were 
perfunctory and utilitarian, and she resented them. “That side 
of life” was connected in her mind with Eudora, somehow, and 
Doctor Mansion, and green suits. 

Disgusting was the thought of her sweet little girl being soiled 
with such ideas! 

She forgot her own childhood groping. 

She remembered how she was sacrificing her own chance of 
escape from that deadly routine, she was sacrificing that afternoon 
at the library for Janice. She would have to stay home and 
cook supper day after day after day. It would take months to 
save another fifteen dollars, too much effort when she was tired. 
And instead of appreciating her sacrifice, Janice was listening 
to talk like that. 

Suddenly Delia had an image of an earth filled with human 
beings clattering at one another, beating one another with long, 
hard, red tongues, mowing one another down, and then beating 
at prostrate bodies. She could see them, curving, flaying, curving 
to flay again. There was no stopping them. It was like a 
nightmare. Why, she was getting morbid! Delia knocked on 
wood. 

She swept the crumbs from the dining-room carpet. That 
room was finished now. Suddenly she went for a hammer and 



TALK 


179 


prized up the two tacks that fastened the corner of the carpet 
to the floor. She lifted the exposed triangle of faded carpet paper 
and fairly ran for a pail and scrubbing brush. With a sort of 
fierceness, she scrubbed the dirty floor. She did this to each 
corner. It had never been done before. She did it violently, be¬ 
cause it was her defiance to futility. Since her energy must go 
into housework, it had to go violently to quiet inner doubts. 
Frustrated, it intensified. 

And then she felt more cheerful, relaxed. 

Through the folding doors she saw Janice reading, “such 
things” evidently forgotten. Delia decided to get Janice an 
Alice-blue dress. The best dressmaker in town should make it 
and others. They needn’t talk about her child! Janice could 
always depend upon her mother! 

Janice was examining the illustrations to Darwin’s Origin of 
Species , noting every interesting word, that she might find its 
meaning in the dictionary. 


4 

After supper Mrs. Reeves “dropped in,” driven out by the 
Humphreys in their car. When Mrs. Reeves wasn’t riding in it, 
she “wondered how they could afford it.” It would call for her 
later. Faltha, never asking favors, managed to get them done 
for her. 

She had heard that Delia was going to work in the library. 

“My! I thought it must be a mistake! I wondered how 
you’d find time. The way women are leaving their homes nowa¬ 
days! Suffragettes! I heard Mary Gale was one. Well, she’ll 



i8o 


TALK 


never get a husband; she might as well have a vote. Did you 
hear about her rest-room in the City Hall, for the country 
women? Well she can’t get them to rest when they come to 
town! She got three women in there on circus day to see the 
parade, and the parade went around the other way. Her rest¬ 
room’s hoodooed now, all right. My! Those women were so 
mad they . . .” 

“What did they do, Drist?” asked literal Janice. 

“Isn’t it Janice’s bedtime, Delia?” was Faltha’s revenge. 

The two were enough alike to dislike each other, though dur¬ 
ing a mutual argument they shared distant admiration for the 
same reason. “Dearest” had developed from “Sscht” to “Drist.” 

After Jan’s departure Mrs. Reeves settled herself in Page’s 
Morris chair. “I have more news!” said she. “The Birdwoods 
are back from Michigan, and she gave a beautiful luncheon on 
Saturday for her sister. Mrs. Birdwood serves so well! And— 
have you heard the latest about Eudora Dexter!” 

Page reddened, and to prove that the name was nothing to him 
he drummed absently on the window sill. 

Mrs. Reeves touched an embroidered handkerchief to her lips 
and went on: “A grown woman with a child dancing! I’ll wager 
there’s a man back of this. One of those affinities, most likely. 
I saw poor Addie Dexter in at Scanlon’s, when I went there to 
see if he had any late corn, and she didn’t say anything. Eudora 
will be a nail in her mother’s coffin!” 

“I wonder what Lindley Campbell thinks,” said Delia. 

“If he divorces her, she needn’t think she’ll be received in 
Merville with open arms! My! Not in my house.” 

“I bet Lindley Campbell’s a bore to live with,” suggested Page, 
his air elaborately indifferent. 




TALK 


181 


“She didn’t have to marry him,” said Delia. 

“Any girl would have to marry a man with all that money, if 
she got the chance,” laughed Faltha. 

“She refused a man in California much richer than Campbell. 
Anybody could see that she was crazy about him when she 
married him.” 

“Now, Page,” said his mother, archly, “a man will take up for 
a pretty woman. Eudora’s not my type; too fast. But the men 
like it.” 

She stood up, charming in her long fitted coat, draping perfectly 
over her pleated skirt. Her brown hair curled softly under an 
enormous mushroom hat. It shaded a dainty, unlined face, un¬ 
changed. She looked five years younger than Delia, and she 
knew it and knew that Delia knew it. 

“Well, there’s the car honking for me. Have you seen Charlie 
May since they’re back from Wisconsin? She’s so pretty this 
fall, just like a girl with those three big children. Delia, do get 
more rest. You look a little tired this evening. And after all these 
years I’ve got the Dexters’ cook’s recipe for transparent pie, and 
I’ll let you have it. Don’t tell a soul. It’s hard to bake, but de- 
lic-ious. Page ’ll like it.” 

Page walked to the gate with her. Since Delia’s cooking had 
improved, their daily suppers had degenerated to the enjoyment 
of some savory experimental morsel, chosen to appetize, not to 
satisfy. 

When Page came back he kissed Delia. 

“Pretty blue eyes,” he said. 

“Well?” said she. 

“Y’know, a man came in to-day with an invention to pad 



TALK 


182 


automobile goggles. You know the way they rub against your 
nose.” 

“I haven’t worn them often enough to know.” 

“That invention is going to make a fortune! ” 

Delia began to close the outside shutters. 

“If I had a little cash he’d take me in.” 

“Oh, Page, it’s a good thing you haven’t any. You’ve poured 
enough money into sieves.” 

“That’s right, discourage me!” He mollified his tone. “Delia, 
honey, haven’t you got a little surprise for me?” 

“What do you mean?” 

“You know, under your wedding veil. Just think of your 
keeping those accounts all these years. And very well done, 
Delia.” 

“Oh! ... Oh! ... How . . . how dared you go through my 
things, Page Reeves!” 

“I was looking for my cartridges to go frog-hunting. The 
way you put things away nobody can find anything! But, Delia, 
don’f we share everything? Why do you want to keep things 
from your husband?” 

“Why! . . . Why! . . . Oh, I’ll never forgive you for this!” 

She backed against the wall, glaring at him. Her blue eyes 
had a light in them now, and rage tautened her, gave a lift to her 
head. 

Page decided that she looked pretty for the first time in years. 

“Now, honey, I can get a thirty-day option on those goggles 
for twenty dollars. That twenty dollars you saved. And we’ll 
call ’em the Delia goggles, after you. I’ll insist upon it.” 

“You will not! I’ve scrimped and worked my fingers to the 
bone for that money, for . . . well . . . I’m going to get your 



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183 


child some clothes so she won’t be a laughing-stock. They’re 
talking. . . .” 

‘‘Talk! That’s all you care about. She’s covered, isn’t she? You 
care more about what people say than you do about me. Delia, 
honey . . .” he wheedled. 

“No, I won’t. I signed that deed and look where it got me. 
Highview. Sassafras Hill, that’s all it is. Good for nothing, like 
the rest of your wild schemes! If you’d stick to your practice the 
way other men do. ...” 

“I was sticking to it when I lost that railroad job. That’s 
what a man gets for sacrificing his career for a woman.” 

“Well, I’m sacrificing this money, that I saved for myself, for 
your child!” 

“Your child, too, remember. Ever since she was bom, you’ve 
considered her first. I might as well be dead.” 

“So you’re jealous of your own child! Of your own flesh 
and blood . . . You . . . Selfish . . . You . . . O-oh! . . .” 

Inarticulate, they glared at each other for a second. On both 
faces flitted a queer flash of fright. It frightened them to 
realize how much they disliked each other. 

Delia went into the bathroom, the only room with a lock. 

She sat down on Page’s shoe-shining box, on the uncomfortable 
grille foot-rest. 

How her head ached, as if somebody were grinding a hole in 
her temple. If she could only die. If she could be so sick she’d 
have to stay in bed and not think any more. Oh! How could 
he violate every speck of privacy? 

She pressed her finger against her throbbing forehead. How 
rough and harsh that finger was. . . . 



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If she could jump in the river. . . . People did those things. 
... In the papers. . . . But they were crazy, of course. 

She had sacrificed her store for Page. In turn she hated the 
thought of the store and marveled that she had run it. She 
had sacrificed her youth and her looks for Page. Drudging, 
drudging, drudging. It was as hopeless to look back as it was 
to look ahead. 

Could she start her store again? Not on twenty dollars, and 
not in Merville. Nobody would understand why a woman with 
a husband and a child wasn’t satisfied. They didn’t understand 
about Eudora. ... But Eudora was different. She had money ’n’ 
everything. Eudora ought to be happy. No wonder they talked 
about her. She ought to be talked about! 

Within Delia two selves began to argue. 

“Go away from here.” 

“But how about Janice?” 

“Take her with you.” 

“But what would people say? You haven’t any right to leave 
your husband. He doesn’t drink or beat you or run after other 
women, exactly.” 

“You’re miserable. Life is awfully short. You’re spending 
yours doing things you hate. You don’t care about Page any 
more.” 

“You’re a fine kind of a woman to marry a man and get tired 
of him. You said that Eudora needn’t have married Lindley.” 

“Your case is different from hers. You want to get away from 
drudgery. You want to live your own life.” 

“Live it, and see where you’d land. Where’d you go? You 
don’t know how to do anything. You’re not strong, either. Your 
head nearly kills you now.” 



TALK 


185 


“Maybe it wouldn’t if you weren’t so miserable.” 

“And if you took your child and left town, even if you got 
on, and you never could, what would people think of you? 
They’d say there was another man. You know how they are. 
Just ready to imagine. . . . Can’t you just hear them?” 

“You couldn’t bear that.” 

And the two selves merged. 

“Delia,” Page called, “are you going to stay in there all night?” 
“I’m coming,” she said. 

Page kissed her mechanically. 

“Is your head better?” Being angry only made things 
uncomfortable. 

“Worse.” 

They exchanged a long cool look of dislike. 


Three years passed. 

On the house at Highview the yellow paint was blistered by 
summer and cracked by winter, and it lay in jagged flakes on 
the porch and on the lawn. Page was supposed to “look after” 
the outside of the house, and he didn’t. He was still scheming 
to make a fortune, and he had become the crack shot of Pherson 
County. 

And Delia had become a crack housekeeper. 

But Charlie May said to Mrs. Gale, “I haven’t seen Delia 
Reeves for months. But it makes me so blue to go out there. 
I never saw anybody change like she has. A woman oughtn’t 
to let herself go like that. And she makes you feel guilty, as 



TALK 


186 


if it was your own fault that your husband has done well and 
hers hasn’t. Page certainly is attractive enough. And we didn’t 
have any better start than they did, and we have three children 
to her one! I reckon she’s just a weak sister. Now, Mrs. Gale, 
do you think it’s worth while for the Civic Club to join the 
National Federation?” 

“Mary knows more about that than I do. You know I’m 
going to play in the Normal School Concert, and that’s taking 
all my time. Poor Delia!” mused Mrs. Gale. 

Delia had shunted herself into housework. She became single- 
tracked. Other tracks had been blocked for her, and she followed 
this one with a fervor that left no time for thought, with a 
fervor that comes when frustrated energy flows into an unnatural 
outlet. Few tasks were done mechanically. Most of them were 
tense efforts at perfection. 

The bamboo bookracks and taborets and carved furniture with 
its tufted leather chairs had crowded the little gray cottage. It 
all retired, scantily, to corners, in the barnlike house at High- 
view. And Delia dusted the intricacies of each pattern pas¬ 
sionately. She would unmake a bed, once made, because there 
was a wrinkle, unseen, but felt in the comforter, beneath the 
counterpane. And as soon as she had any time to spare she 
set herself new tasks. 

She turned her meager, half-filled linen closet into an institu¬ 
tion. Her small stock of towels had to be tiered, every towel 
receding one-third inch, forming a pyramid. If one receded too 
far, or not far enough, the whole pyramid had to be rebuilt. 

She cooked each meal as though it were a wedding breakfast. 
An underdone steak depressed her; a burnt com pudding made 



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187 


her “mook” for hours. Page coined that word to express her 
unbreakable gloomy silence. 

Occasionally she clutched at Janice, who coolly and capably 
eluded her. And so rarely did Delia escape herself or her house, 
that insignificant scenes took on great significance. 

Janice, at twelve, was going to dances. The “younger crowd” 
danced and roller-skated and played cards during vacations and 
at the end of the school week. The girls rivaled one another in 
clothes, beaux, and getting invited with the “older crowd.” 

And Delia worried over Janice’s clothes; she worried when 
Janice went to parties because she was so young, and because she 
had to drive home from such a distance; she worried lest Janice 
(Shouldn’t go, because she wanted Janice to be “in everything.” 

Janice was “in everything.” Her indifference, her air of aloof¬ 
ness, made her popular, especially when her temperament, though 
interred, was there. People felt it as a challenge to their powers 
to rouse. People made an effort to win a response from her be¬ 
cause it was hard to win. She was a clever, self-sustaining little 
person, whose hardness defended her against her intuition. All 
her life she had been one of her parents’ many battle grounds. If 
she hadn’t been hard she would have been miserable. She was 
hard, and she got along very well. 

One spring house-cleaning day, when Delia had, as usual, moved 
all the furniture into rooms where it didn’t belong, Janice 
complained. 

“What do you want to make things so uncomfortable for? 
When the house is cleaned every day, what’s the use of this 
extra fuss?” 

She had come in from school with three books under her arm. 
She wore a tight little high-waisted brown skirt with straps over 



TALK 


a thin embroidered lawn waist. Delia had embroidered that 
waist through midnight hours. The lure of “sitting up until 
midnight to work her fingers to the bone for her daughter” 
was stronger than the possibility of doing it at a normal time. 

“Everybody cleans house in the spring,” Delia told her. “Just 
wait until you get a house of your own.” 

“Not me,” said Jan. 

“You might take the doilies off the parlor chairs,” Delia 
suggested. 

“I’ve got some lessons to do for to-morrow. Exams.” 

Janice went out with a pile of books and slid up on the stone 
side fence. 

From the window Delia watched her. She didn’t open a book. 
She stared at a yellow butterfly. 

Delia, hurt because Janice wasn’t “helping her mother,” noted 
with pride that she was pretty. Delia’s ideal type was Ethel 
Barrymore, whose slender perfection was pictured on every the¬ 
atrical page. Janice looked more like an unfriendly, gaminkh 
version of Maude Adams. 

A boy passed on the road, a boy whom Delia had never seen. 

“ ’L°j Jan!” he called. 

“ ’Lo,” said Jan coolly. 

He came through the gate and up to the fence. Jan sat there 
quietly. The two talked for a few moments in a tone too low 
for Delia to hear. 

After he left, Delia called out, “Who was that?” 

“Just a boy from school.” 

“What’d he want?” 

“Oh, nothing.” 

Janice was as remote as fate. 




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189 


Delia knew nothing about her own daughter, her own flesh 
and blood, for whom she had sacrificed everything. Working, 
slaving, day in and day out, staying up nights to embroider 
waists for her. . . . She would find out who that boy was! 

Delia began to unwrap the towel from her head. She couldn’t 
go into the yard with her hair all covered and in that dress she 
wore for house-cleaning. Suppose somebody passed and saw her? 

By the time she reached the stone fence Janice was not to be 
seen. 

She called, “O-h, Jan-ice!” 

For fear of wondering passers-by, she didn’t call too loudly. 

But Janice was safe on her perch in the peach tree in the 
back yard. She munched a green peach while she read Wells’ 
Ann Veronica, which, covered with a Myer’s General History 
wrapper, was being smuggled through “the crowd.” 

Delia went back into the house. 

She decided that Jan’s adenoids must come out at once. Doctor 
Emery had been wanting them out for years. 

Slowly she twisted the towel around her head again and fast¬ 
ened it in back with a safety pin. 

Suddenly she got frightened. She stared at the dusty road, not 
seeing it, not seeing anything. She was frightened because she 
didn’t know what she was. . . . She knew who she was, but not 
what. . . . Everything was mixed up. . . . There was no straight 
clear sluice through her, flowing straight. . . She was like a basin, 
fizzing out into every direction, not getting anywhere, except into 
dark caves, where things, contorting things, moved and fought. 
What was she? What was her me-ness? What a terrible thought! 
Her me-ness was gone! How unhappy she was! What she? 
What about her was unhappy? 



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She shook her head quickly as if to jog herself back. 

She noticed that one of those little shiny steel hammers, pins 
that held the doilies on the parlor chairs, was lost. She began 
to look for it. 

Later when she tried to remember how she had stood there 
by the window, frightened, she couldn’t remember what she had 
been frightened about. Perhaps it was because she had decided to 
have Jan’s adenoids removed. 

She telephoned Doctor Emery about it. 

Then she thought of what Page would say about the expense, 
and how she would answer him. She grew angrier and angrier 
as she thought about what he would say. 

# 

With 1914 came the war. Merville moved pins on war maps cut 
out of the newspapers, and argued about how to pronounce 
Prsymyzl. Mary Gale organized a Mother Goose Pantomime for 
the benefit of the Belgian children. She made two hundred dol¬ 
lars and offended the mothers whose offspring were not invited to 
take part. 

When America went into the war Page Reeves, in a fine fervor 
of patriotism and a finer fervor to get away from home, volun¬ 
teered. He was refused on account of his forty-one years and his 
astigmatism. He found much consolation in the fiery Liberty 
Loan speeches he made. 

Delia took Home Fires and Hooverism hard. She struggled 
with bran muffins. Jan accused her of turning them back to their 
native wood. She saved sugar fiercely, and watched lest Jan 



TALK 


191 

and Page steal an extra lump. When she discovered them in 
the kitchen making fudge one night, she said they were regular 
Huns. 

“I’ll say we’re Huns,” said Page, “short for hungries!” 

“Pretty poor for you, dad,” said Janice. 

“I think you’re both terrible,” announced Delia. 

“Wanta piece?” offered Janice. “It’s good. Might as well eat it, 
now it’s made. Your friend Mr. Hoover says not to waste 
things!” 

“Page, how can you encourage her to talk to me like that!” 

Delia flounced out of the kitchen. 

Until Janice was nine she had been in league with Delia against 
Page. Delia was always fighting him for her, taking her side, 
always. But since Janice had become so independent and so 
pretty, she and Page seemed to be in league against Delia. Page 
was now taking Jan’s side. 

The war slump had made it possible for Page to buy more 
land. His failure and his obscurity fed his lust for it. Inviting 
men to hunt “out at my place,” surveying his own acreage though 
it might be sterile acreage, sated him. 

And every time he bought more, with credit or cash that should 
have gone to paying bills, Delia railed at him. Whenever news 
came of Eudora Dexter Page had to get more land, though he 
never connected that need with her. And in seven years there 
had been much news of Eudora Dexter. 

She and Lindley Campbell were divorced, and for no reason 
that Merville could see. She said that he liked everything done 
as it had always been done, and she liked things done because 
she liked them. She shocked him and his family daily. At first 
it had been fun for him and for her. Then it palled and became 




192 


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an irritant. She had laved him at first; she loved him no longer. 
He bored her, and she kept him from finding his sort of woman 
who would make him happy. 

Mrs. Humphrey told the Red Cross that the Germans might 
be destroying civilization, but Eudora was “doing her bit,” at¬ 
tacking the very foundations of marriage. As further proof Mrs. 
Alice produced a letter written to Charlie May in which Eudora 
said, “It’s been bad for little Lindley (he’s six feet tall) to be 
exposed to two points of view at the same time. Now he’ll be 
with me for six months, and get mine, and his six months with 
his father will give him the Campbell routine. Mine’s all right, 
and so’s theirs, but the two don’t mix for too long, when neither 
of us is a bit malleable. Anyway, I think most youngsters get 
too much of one home. It must get on their nerves.” 

Faltha Reeves poised her scissors in mid-air. She was the expert 
cutter of surgical gowns. “I believe that girl’s a little off,” 
said she. 

i Wasn’t there an aunt on her father’s side who was just a little 
strong minded or something?” asked Mrs. Merriam. 

“Something,” said Faltha Reeves. “Her father’s sister, Henri¬ 
etta Dexter, eloped with a jockey in Lexington. Don’t you re¬ 
member he fought a duel with somebody who said he’d been 
drinking champagne out of her dancing slipper? Alice, just hold 
this material while I cut it.” 

And Squire Preston went to Eudora’s father to tell him that 
he ought to put his foot down, though everybody knew that 
Eudora’s was the only active foot in the Dexter family. 

The men talked it over in the Merville House lobby. 

“Better watch out, Squire,” Major Humphrey warned him. 
Last week when I was out hunting I passed a cabin down near 



TALK 


i 93 


the river, and saw a wild cat jump in the kitchen window. I 
could see a woman moving around in there, cooking dinner, so 
I yelled to her husband. He was rocking out on the porch. I 
told him that a wild cat had jumped in the room where his wife 
was. ‘You don’t say so,’ he said. ‘Well, I never did have much 
use for wild cats, nohow.’ ” 

Bob Fletcher, with his notebook, came in just then, looking 
for news. Nothing but the bare announcement of Eudora’s di¬ 
vorce would be printed. Local scandal, with the exception of 
political scandal, was never in the Merville News , 

“Say, Squire,” he asked for his own information, “how much 
alimony do you reckon she’ll get?” 

The three men figured earnestly on a piece of paper. 

And the next day they heard that she would take none. 

Mrs. Reeves tapped her forehead significantly. “Didn’t I tell 
you so?” she reminded the Red Cross. 

Mrs. Humphrey said she thought that Eudora was divorcing 
Lindley Campbell to marry a richer man. 

And then Mrs. Mollie Henderson came in so excited that her 
rose-colored hat had flopped to one side of her gray curls. 

“I’ve got a letter from Leslie, all about Eudora Dexter.” She 
sat down on a bench, out of breath from haste. 

The ladies left their work and crowded around Mrs. Mollie. 

“What’d he say? Tell us quick before poor Addie Dexter gets 
here,” said Mrs. Humphrey. 

“He’s got his salary raised.” 

“Yes, yes, that’s very nice, but about Eudora. . . 

“And he doesn’t have to go abroad, because the Sphere is an 
Administration paper, and he can serve his country here, keeping 



194 


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the country’s morale Democratic he says. Isn’t that wonder¬ 
ful? . . 

“Very, very! But for Heavens’ sake tell us what he says about 
Eudora!” 

“She’s gone on the stage!” 

“No!” 

“Yes.” 

“Read us what he says about her, Mollie!” 

“I suppose you all were surprised to hear about Eudora’s 
divorce from that big stiff. Of course the tabbies and tommies 
are clawing and yawling about it. . . .” 

Mrs. Mollie stopped. “I forgot the way he put it. You know 
Leslie doesn’t mean any harm. It’s just his playful little 
way. ...” 

“Mollie, go ahead and read that letter before I shake you. 
We don’t care what Leslie says about us; we want to know what 
he says about her!” said Faltha Reeves. 

“ ‘Eudora says she’s got to do something besides punching a time 
clock until she’s eighty-six. She always loved to dance and 
she’s got a job on the Flint Vaudeville Circuit. She got some 
good training with the Cosmopolitan ballet, though her damn 
Yankee husband did make such a fuss about her doing it. Not 
that she’s any Pavlova. But she gets across, and when I get 
through with her publicity, there’ll be a lot doing. Young Lind- 
ley’s at prep school. Think he’s going to be a great fullback.’ ” 

“Publicity! How horrible!” shuddered Mrs. Humphrey, “I 
do hope she’ll have the decency to leave Lindley Campbell’s 
name out of it. Sh! Sh! here comes poor Addie Dexter in Mrs. 
Birdwood’s car. . . . Howdy, Addie! We were just talking about 
the war. Has Mrs. Gale heard from Ronnie? How long does 






TALK 


i 95 


Mr. Dexter think the war’s going to last? The major always 
says he has so much confidence in Mr. Dexter’s judgment.” 



Eudora did not leave Lindley Campbell’s name out of it. She 
and Leslie made his name the base of her career. Next to the 
war news in the New York Sphere streamed: 

MILLIONAIRE’S WIFE IN VAUDEVILLE 
LINDLEY CAMPBELL HAS NOTHING TO SAY 

New York went to see Lindley Campbell’s wife dance. 

The war ended and it was in glad relief that people turned 
to pleasure. Eudora Dexter gave it to them. She danced her 
love of life; she made people ache joyously with it. She was 
not a great dancer, but she was a good one. She had perfected 
her technique so that her work seemed effortless. Apparently, 
she was merely having fun while she tied herself to everybody’s 
memories. 

She came on the stage dressed as Little Bo-Peep, and chanted 
the old rhyme with ridiculous solemnity, acting it through in 
pantomime. 

When the lambs were lost she 

“. . . took her little crook, 

Determined for to find them; 

She found them, indeed, but it made her heart bleed, 

For they’d left all their tails behind them.” 


But so tragically, 



TALK 


196 


“Unto a meadow hard by— 

There she spied their tails side by side, 

All hung on a tree to dry. 

“She heaved a sigh, and wiped her eye, 

And over the hillocks she raced; 

And tried what she could, as a shepherdess should, 

That each tail should be properly placed.” 

With great care and precision, on each of her flock of toy- 
lambs, she stuck a woolly tail where it belonged. Hers was absurd 
clowning, but people loved it and her charm. 

Then she dressed and danced through the popular songs of the 
past two decades. In pleated skirt and a golf cape, with a red 
tarn on her pompadoured hair, she rode a bicycle to the tune of, 

“Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer true, 

I’m half crazy, all for the love of you.” 

Amid saccharine rural scenery she sang “In the Good Old 
Summer Time,” but her greatest success was “The Curse of an 
Aching Heart.” 

With a ragged brown shawl over disheveled copper hair, with a 
smudge of soot on one cheek and a coquettish beauty spot on the 
other, she wore a pure white old-fashioned muslin dress, and 
wicked red-heeled slippers with twinkling jeweled straps; and 
she sang: 


“‘You made me what I am to-day. 

I hope you’re satisfied. 

You dragged me down until 
The soul within me died. 

You’ve shattered each and ev’ry dream, 
You fooled me from the start, 

And tho’ you’re not true, 

May God bless you, 

That’s the curse of an aching heart.* ” 



TALK 


197 


Her audience left the theater humming the tune that was tied 
to a memory. She had given them delicious fooling that meant 
nothing, when they were tired of listening to fooling with a 
meaning. She had no propaganda for them. 

She wanted to make enough money to guarantee her independ¬ 
ence. She wrote Charlie May that she couldn’t take money from 
Lindley when she wasn’t giving him anything for it. Mrs. 
Alice Humphrey said that was the coarsest idea she had ever 
heard, but what could you expect, since Eudora was on the 
stage! 

But Eudora was nearly forty and her act was slight. Les 
Henderson, managing her publicity, had to make the most of 
it. 

And so the papers printed her views on divorce, on child train- 
ing, on futurist art, the League of Nations, and the labor prob¬ 
lem. Always she said something amusing which had little to 
do with her subject. And once started, publicity rolled out of 
its own momentum. Commodities begged and paid for the 
use of her name. 

The country was informed that Eudora Dexter used Kitchener’s 
cold cream; she owed her success to the invigorating qualities 
of Perching bath salts; she smoked Prunella cigarettes when she 
was tired and ate Radium candies when she wasn’t; she could 
dance in none but Atlas stockings; and she walked on Tiger 
rubber heels. 

When Vigo, the tonic that tones, proclaimed that “Eudora 
Dexter grows confidential. She owes her success to the 
invigorating qualities of Vigo,” one of the columnists printed it 
parallel with the similar claim of Perching bath salts. The Rasp¬ 
berry Patch wanted to know, “Which?” Les sent the Rasper (a 



198 


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friend of his) a cartoon portraying Eudora being upheld in comic 
fashion by two lusty imps, one Vigo and one bath salt. Then 
the other columnists (friends of Leslie's) collected lists of all 
commodities that served Eudora Dexter and contributors wrote 
doggerel about them. 

4 


Merville acted like a ship with a spent bomb sent at its broad¬ 
sides. It reeled with shock, it listed, it righted itself, and sailed 
ahead. It began to brag about Eudora. It forgot that she was 
a divorcee and remembered that she was a success. It said that 
was the way with little old Merville. Mervillians always went to 
the top. Look at Les Henderson, and the Merriam boy who was 
an ace in the war, and the Gale boy, the youngest major in 
the state and now way up in a New York bank! And as for 
Eudora Dexter you couldn’t pick up a magazine without seeing 
her name in it somewhere! 

Faltha Reeves asked Mrs. Mollie if she weren’t worried about 
Leslie. “My! ” said she. “It isn’t safe for any male to be around 
Eudora, even if she is going to be thirty-eight years old on the 
thirteenth of March!” 

Mrs. Mollie had long since renounced her boarding house for 
a cozy apartment in the St. Christopher Apartments. She thought 
she would never have to throw a rose-colored haze over anything 
again. But she gave a rose-colored answer to Mrs. Reeves. 

“I think an older woman can be such an inspiration to a 
man!” 

“Eudora’s more likely to be a dissipation!” 



TALK 


199 

And then Les came home on a visit, and said that Eudora 
had no time for him or any man except Lindley junior. And 
Les courted none of the Merville girls. He said that, after a 
quiet city, Merville was too gay for him. He was a hard¬ 
working man and what could he do with a girl who never came 
home until morning? 

Mrs. Mollie resigned herself to the delightful prospect of a 
bachelor son, but he came home one day from a dinner given 
him by the normal school, where he had found The Girl. And she 
was a Merville girl! 

He chuckled. 

“My son!” Mrs. Mollie, weeping, kissed him. 

“Now, who is it? Not the Merriam girl. . . . Not Jan Reeves; 
she’s too young. . . . Not Charline Fletcher; she’s. . . 

“Rhoda Bassett.” 

“Who is Rhoda Bassett?” 

Leslie sat down in an easy chair, puffing at his pipe, his green 
eyes twinkling. 

“She’s an assistant teacher in the Home Economics 
Department.” 

“But, my son, who is she?” 

“Hold hard, mother dear. You’re in for a shock. Rhoda is 
the only daughter of Billy Bassett.” 

“Not the saloon-keeper,” begged Mrs. Mollie, faintly. 

“Not any more.” 

“Leslie, this isn’t a joking subject.” 

“What? Prohibition?” 

“Leslie, please be sensible. You can’t mean. . . . Why, 
they’re Fifth Warders. . . . Nobody ever. . . . Why, this is one 
of your little jokes, of course!” 




200 


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“Mother, I do mean it. She’s the sanest, soundest, healthiest 
girl I’ve met since the war. And she’s got the slickest black hair 
you ever saw; and eyes ... oh, boy, she has eyes!” 

“But she’s not. . . . Think what people ’ll say!” 

They said it. 

Major Humphrey said he bet it was a military wedding, and 
Mr. Birdwood, who happened to be present, asked him to re¬ 
tract that statement. He had met Rhoda Bassett, and he said she 


was the best-read girl in Merville. The women called on Mrs. 
Mollie and elaborately avoided the subject until she adjusted 
herself and began to brag about how Leslie was marrying the 
only girl in Merville who didn’t paint! Rhoda had no plucked 
eyebrows! Rhoda had never been talked about! Rhoda wasn’t 
found hidden in parked automobiles! Rhoda knew about the 
chemistry of foods! She bored them with Rhoda’s virtues and 
they let her alone. But they swore to one another that “Mollie 
needn’t think she could force one of those Bassetts on Merville 
society!” They didn’t call on Rhoda. 

And Leslie said that Billy Bassett had more pre-war Bourbon 
than any man in Kentucky, and while the old aristocracy was 
based on time and the new on money, the newest was on pre¬ 
war whisky. Struck with the idea, he immortalized it in a cartoon, 
and Merville pronounced him outrageous. He not only ridiculed 
his friends, but he ridiculed his own affairs. He had no feeling. 

And then everybody but Mrs. Mollie and Rhoda Bassett be¬ 
came oblivious of Les and his affairs, because oil was discovered 
to be a certainty in Pherson County. 


For some months the great oil companies had had geologists 
examining the land. But the migratory herds which follow booms 
had swarmed into Merville before the solid citizens took it 





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201 


seriously. The Birdwoods, the Gales, the Humphreys, and the 
Merriams decided that Merville with its hills, its traditions, 
its freedom from money values, didn’t fit the idea of an oil 
boom. 

They said this even while those strange check-suited, derby- 
hatted men, with their stranger women, called them “nates” 
and were dismissed as “oilers” to be kept off Country Club 
grounds. They said it even after “oilers” of good family, pretty 
women with bright husbands who played bridge, and attractive 
young men who danced came to be absorbed into the social group. 

They laughed at Page when he insisted on taking a geologist 
over Highview. Page waited. The geologist, with an assistant, 
went over the place again and again. And the last time Page took 
them back to town and went home, though it was eleven o’clock 
in the morning. 

Delia was thorough-cleaning, a monthly event that meant 
moving all the furniture and wiping the woodwork with a damp 
cloth; it meant a house smelling from the gasoline with which 
she cleaned the porcelain, and from the pungent brass polish with 
which she cleaned the hardware. It meant an extra elaborate 
meal because it was so difficult to manage. And it meant enor¬ 
mous fatigue for Delia, to be followed by a two day “mook,” 
almost as depressing to her family as it was to her. 

And now Page with measured tread stepped on the porch. He 
looked so pale and solemn that Delia thought he must have 
influenza. 

“Delia, I’ve got something to tell you.” 

“You’re sick. Wait a minute. I’ll phone Doctor Emery right 
away.” 

“No, I’m not sick. It’s wonderful news ...” 



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“Oh, that’s it ,’ 7 Delia sighed, and put the towel around her 
head again. “Another scheme. You may have time to stop and 
talk at eleven o’clock in the morning, but I haven’t. I’ve got to 
get this room done before dinner.” 

“Delia! Will you come out of that mess and into the dining 
room where you can listen!” 

Oh, isn t this as good a place as any to tell me that you’ve 
heard of some invention that’ll take the punctures out of tires 
or something? I can be getting my work done.” 

Page began to stride up and down the hall. 

“My God! if I wasn’t so excited you’d take the heart out of 
anything ... but this is big! Big, Delia, big!” 

“Uh! So I’ve heard before.” Delia took a damp cloth and 
stuck a hairpin in its comer and began to pry the dust out of a 
carved lion on an umbrella stand. 

Page went to her, grabbed the cloth, threw it on the hearth, and 
pulled her into the dining room. 

Delia said, “ 0 -oh!” She said it that way when she was 
puzzled. It was one of her little ways he had adored. 

“Don’t o-oh! ” he said now. 


He faced her. Tears came into his great black eyes. 

“Delia, Delia darling. All these dreadful days are over. 
Look! Look out of the window! Under all those rocks, under 
that hill, is oil, oil, oil! Money for us. Big money.” He had 
to orate. “Never again will you have to soil your little hands 
with work. Delia darling, can you realize it?” 

“Oil? Oh, I might have known you’d fall for that. Mr. Gale 
says there’s nothing in it. This isn’t the sort of country for oil 
I’m sorry, Page, but, honestly, I’ve got to get that hall done 




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203 


before dinner. This is important. We can talk about oil at the 
table.” 

Page looked at her, hating her. She had spoiled his moment. 

“Delia, if I weren’t so happy, I’d have to shake you. Look 
at this. This is a copy of the report that the crack geologist for 
National Oil is sending his company. I reckon you’ve heard of 
National Oil, haven’t you?” he added, sarcastically. 

Delia took the typewritten tissue. She couldn’t understand the 
technical terms, but down the page she saw figures she could 
understand. They made her catch her breath. 

“They’re going to begin drilling right away. I’m giving them 
a lease on the land, and you bet I’ll make ’em give me some 
royalties!” Page’s shrewdness could act this time, unspoiled by 
his love of limelight. The Lord had sent this limelight. Page, 
not having to work for it, could use it. 

And Delia sat there, reading an advertisement in the morning 
paper which Janice had left on the sideboard. She read: “Primo, 
the best brass polish. It cleans.” She must get some Primo, if it 
weren’t too expensive. But she wouldn’t have to worry about 
expense. She wouldn’t have to worry about polish, now! Ser¬ 
vants would do her work. 

Then what would she do? Do! She’d have money and cars 
and clothes . . . everything. Like Eudora Dexter. But she 
was so tired, her head ached. And she must get that hall done 
before it was time to get dinner. She needn’t worry about that 
now. . . . But what would she do first? She didn’t know. Rest 
. . . soft cushions . . . night gowns with real lace tops. But 
how do you clean real lace? If you send them to the cleaners, 
they wouldn’t feel nice and clean, and cleaners are so expensive, 
anyway. She wouldn’t have to bother about expense any more! 



204 


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She was so tired. How her head ached! Clothes for Janice; 
opportunities for her. Janice might go away and leave her. . 
Page ... in new clothes ... he was still young. . . . Why 
how terrible! She ought to tell Page how glad she was, how 

wonderful it was! But she was not glad. How terrible not to 
be glad. . . . 


She went up to him. 

“Page, it’s wonderful! I’m so glad!” 

Page began to laugh; tears were in his eyes. He kissed her. 
“No wonder, darling, you couldn’t believe it. It’s like' a 

fairy tale. What are you going to get first? Hurry tell me 
quick!” * 

Delia couldn’t think of anything. She squirmed in his arms 
She saw that advertisement for brass polish in the newspaper on 
the sideboard. 

She buried her face in his coat and sobbed, and then she 
laughed, and sobbed again. 

“ 0 -oh! ” she said. 



Highview proved to be the most productive oil field in the 
county For some time it earned ten thousand dollars a month. 
And though Delia shrilled at him, Page bought more land 
adjoimng his own. But he sold oil leases on it, and with his 

Mfoile ’ 1 7 ^ h ™ OCh ' He tUrned conservat ive, and sought 
Mr. Gale s advice at every turn. Mr. Gale advised him to buy 

btildl V ’ Ta a ' l0Wed hi “ t0 bUy the Mayfield dr ^ OT e 

building. Page had to own a building on the square! 



TALK 


205 


And Delia wanted to move to town, back into the world again. 
They arranged to leave Highview. Page bought a lot on Hill 
Street, and engaged a Louisville architect, and started to fight 
.with Delia over the plans. 

Delia said, “If you face the house this way, won’t people 
think it’s funny?” 

And the architect said, “Mrs. Reeves, the only way to face it so 
that some people won’t think it’s funny would be to put it on 
a pivot!” 

And then the Gales’ lovely old Colonial house near the square 
was put on the market. With the Gale boy in New York, with 
Mary Gale meandering over the state on uplift missions, Mrs. 
Gale saw no purpose in it. 

So Page sold his lot, for a profit, to an “oiler” (you could sell 
anything to an oiler), and bought the Gale house. 

As soon as the deed was signed, Delia regretted it. Everybody 
was moving to the country. Charlie May Fletcher was building 
a beautiful Italian house near the Country Club. The Merriams 
were altering a picturesque old place on the river. And everybody 
was collecting old furniture, though Delia had, unknowingly, 
ordered hers from a decorator’s studio in Chicago! 

At dinner one day, Delia suggested selling the Gale place. 
The Reeves’ were still at Highview. Outside their windows were 
the drillers, about them was the heavy smell of oil. Fires 
flickered from the gas, so plentiful that it was burned away. 

“I’m perfectly satisfied with the Gale place,” said Page. 

“Well, I’m not.” 

“You’re not satisfied with anything!” 

“Hello, turtle doves!” greeted Janice, home from the normal 
school. Jan, who danced better, who swam better, than any girl 






206 


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•in Merville, “fed up,” had gone back to school to study higher 
mathematics. She “got a kick out of it,” and what Jan got a kick 
from she did. It was her sole principle. 

“You’re the most impudent human being I ever saw,” said 
Delia. 

“If you’d go in for higher mathematics, you wouldn’t worry so 
much about human beings, old dear, and we’d all be better off. 
How’s Jase?” 

Jase was short for Jason. 

Page winked at her. 

“Whew-w! Such a smell, and such a noise! When are we 
going to cut the golden fleece and move into the palace and have 
slaves ’n’ everything?” 

“Next week,” said Page, firmly. 

“O-oh! If Aunt Mandy only hadn’t died!” wailed Delia. 
“They say it’s so hard to get decent servants nowadays. They 
get awful wages and they don’t do a thing!” 

“You’ll find ’em. Mother’s got a lovely maid. She used to be 
a manicurist, and she can do anything.” 

“Leave it to Drist! Wow! How she runs that little electric!” 

Faltha Reeves had taken three days to adapt to Page’s good 
fortune, to her portion of it. Magnificently, Page had told her 
he would grant her any wish. She named an electric automobile, 
endowed, as she humorously put it, and a personal maid. She 
preferred to be her own cook. 

Janice had no more affection for her “flapper grandmother” 
than she had for anything else, but she had admiration for her. 
Faltha Reeves played a perfect game of bridge. She had a perfect 
recipe for peach brandy. She knew every scrap of gossip in 
Merville. And she went to every Country Club dance. She had 




TALK 


207 


shed her figure miraculously, spared the agony of reducing. Her 
bust and hips had gone where the old padding goes. She wore 
charming clothes and she looked forty-one. 

Delia detested her. 

She took Delia to Louisville to be properly corseted and hair- 
dressed and massaged and frocked. But neglect had made Delia’s 
figure lumpy. She didn’t walk correctly; her shoulders slumped. 
Her hair came out in handfuls, that grayish-blond, impossible to 
match. Massage, instead of livening her colorless skin, brought 
red spots out on it and had to be stopped. The manicurist at the 
Louisville State Hotel said afterward that she “reckoned Mrs. 
Reeves must have dug those oil wells with her hands.” 

And good clothes brought out Delia’s worst points. Nor could 
she understand why the most expensive “models” had to be fitted 
five times. Standing tired her. She couldn’t feel the importance 
of this or that line. When a dress came home with a “bad 
wrinkle” here or there, she just kept it. 

For a while Page seemed to get a year younger every week. 
He went to the best tailor in Louisville. He tipped the head 
waiter at the State House, and the carriage man who had always 
snubbed him. He strutted joyously through the lobby, sur¬ 
rounded by a crowd of obsequious bell boys. 

To Delia’s fury, Janice bought a typewriter especially equipped 
with mathematical signs. Janice saw no reason to change her 
habits. She had always dressed well, but she didn’t need so 
much money for that. 










Book Four 

The House 


‘X 







Meanwhile Merville adjusted to its oil boom. There were a 
few new bridge-playing couples, and more than a few presentable 
young men. The town, somewhat gilded, returned to its groove. 

Pilch Trenton sold his livery stable to become president of the 
Town Bank, a chaste white stone building with an ecclesiastical 
glass front. Its reception room was made cozy with a big wood 
fire and stuffed chairs and a spittoon. Bob Fletcher said that 
Pilch had run his stable like a bank, and now his bank was 
going to be run like a stable. 

“Never mind,” said Pilch. “They say democracy went out 
with the stable, where everybody could sit around and talk to 
everybody else. Everybody’s welcome in this bank!” 

They were and they came. 

Whereupon Mr. Gale erected the New Merville National, a 
lovely Greek temple. And its reception room was made cozy 
with a big wood fire and stuffed chairs and a spittoon. He made 
Page a director. And when bank hold-ups became epidemic and 
he built a cage facing the door to hold an armed sentinel, Pilch 
wanted to know if this wasn’t where Page was going to be useful 
to the Merville National? Page was a crack shot. Why send 
for a man from Tisdale to guard the bank! 

The two banks engaged in a rivalry which was intense and 
social. The town took sides. 

And at the banks men exclaimed over how “wild” the young 
people were; how the girls wouldn’t dance with a man without a 
nip of “white mule” from his hip pocket; how Les Henderson’s 

211 


212 


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wife, Rhoda Bassett (whom nobody in Merville would receive), 
was such a social success in New York. 

In the Town Bank, Pilch mentioned how his wife (he had 
recently married the pretty widow, Mrs. Aiken), had a cook who 
had worked for Delia Reeves for a week. She had the record. 
No cook stayed longer. Delia was after her every minute, going 
around with white gloves to find dust; peering into the icebox 
and standing over her while she boiled the water to scour it. It 
was hard on Page. Delia wouldn’t let him enjoy his money, 
after the struggle he had gone through. 

A letter from the Gales’ New York relatives brought the Mer¬ 
ville National the latest news about Eudora Dexter. She had 
been touring out West. Her name had not appeared in the 
papers for several months. Now she was to be the co-respondent 
in a divorce case. 

The banks agreed that they expected such a scandal. The 
women said, “I told you so.” 

But, “It blesses him that gives and him that takes,” wrote Les 
Henderson to his mother, for circulation. “This divorce case is 
a put-up job. That big stiff, Lindley Campbell, fell in love with 
a Mrs. Lamb, his sort, the girl he should have married, says 
Eudora, in the first place. But there was a Mr. Lamb. He was 
willing to give her a divorce. And just when Lindley and his 
lady love were preparing a noble renunciation for propriety’s 
sake, Eudora stepped in. Or rather danced in. She said she was 
under obligations to Lindley, both for Lindley junior and for his 
name. It had been such a help in her work. She offered to go 
down to Atlantic City with Mr. Lamb and play double solitaire 
in a hotel bedroom all night with him. Collusion. And Eudora’s 
being an actress would make divorce come easy. Lindley couldn’t 



TALK 


213 


allow it. The Campbells, although they ached to acquire the lady 
Lamb, wouldn’t allow it. But you know Eudora when she 
makes up her mind. The Campbells had about as much chance 
as a snowball in hell. They called me into it. Eudora, Lindley, 
and I had a jolly little threesome at the Ritz. I persuaded him 
that Eudora needed a scandal. Just one. Her own divorce had 
been so gentle, and the Russians are hard on home talent. Young 
Lindley came down from college and sided with his mother. He 
felt she owed an obligation to father. Young Lindley is a 
corker.” 

After the Lamb divorce a new silk, a new carpet sweeper, and 
a new perfume were named for Eudora. Magazines interviewed 
her on The Younger Generation, Women in the Home, and Eti¬ 
quette for Vampires. 

Merville called it a fantastic performance. “Something must 
be back of it.” The truth was too ridiculous to believe. 

To Delia it was utterly incomprehensible. To think about it 
gave her a headache. Scandal was such a fearful thing that to 
seek it, to make it an asset, was immoral in a dense and terrible 
way. It undermined everything. 

And Janice kept on saying that Eudora Dexter had done a 
“stunning thing.” And whenever Janice said that a funny, 
pleased, gentle look came on Page’s face, a look which frightened 
Delia. 

It worried her almost as much as her servants did. 

She, who had painfully reached perfection, demanded the pain 
and the perfection of them, discounting any natural aptitudes. 
She ordered each detail, and watched to see it fulfilled her way. 
It wasn’t. She hated them. She went into tantrums about them, 



214 


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and rarely dared to go into tantrums to them. She dreaded their 
leaving, and when one left she “mooked” unhappily for days. 

But if Page complained about a meal, or some neglect, she 
violently defended the person responsible for it. To him, she 
was on the defensive about everything, from the weather to the 
League of Nations. 

Then Charlie May told Mary Gale that they must get Delia 
“in things.” 

The new money in the town lured the Woman’s Civic Club to 
build a library. Mary Gale came home to organize it, and she 
suggested that Delia, who used to run a bookstore, was the 
logical chairman for the book-buying committee. 

When Mary Gale called on Delia and referred to Webster’s 
Book-store, Delia looked embarrassed. 

I think it was just fine, the work you did, Mrs. Reeves!” 
Mary beamed earnestly through her horn-rimmed spectacles. 

This was the first praise that Delia had received for years, 
and she warmed to it. 

She had a bright, flitting image of the store, of her happiness 
there, and its success. 

“Mother has told me so often how hard it was for you, Mis’ 
Delia. It’s hard to be ahead of your time. You were a pioneer. 
Now women are no longer tied to domesticity if they aren’t suited 
to it. All fields are open to them.” Mary, accustomed to public 
speaking, gesticulated widely. 

Delia, accustomed to oratory, nodded absently. She stared out 
of the window. 

^ “Mary!” she exclaimed so suddenly that Mary Gale started, 
“just look at the way Henry has left that hose-spouter under 
that tree! The water’s standing in puddles and the rest of the 




TALK 


215 

yard’s as dry as a bone. Now wouldn’t you think he’d have 
enough sense to move it without my having to tell him to, every 
half hour? Honestly. . . 

“Isn’t it?” said Mary, vaguely. “Now we’ll expect you Wed¬ 
nesday afternoon at three!” 


4 

The executive committee of the Woman’s Civic Club met in a 
room at the City Hall. 

Twenty women assembled, Rhoda Bassett Henderson among 
them. Her shining black hair, boyishly clipped, her shining 
light-blue eyes, her ruddy skin, made her look like a hybrid flower, 
offspring of a violet and a yellow daisy. Her soft blue dress was 
so brilliantly embroidered that Phillipa Merriam whispered to 
Mrs. Gale, “Now would you think all those colors would go 
together? Czecho-Slovakian. Did you read in Mode how ...” 

Rhoda was a Fifth Warder. Her father had kept a saloon, and 
when she married, everybody swore, “Les Henderson needn’t 
think he can force her on us!” But there she was, with Mrs. 
Reeves, on the band wagon as usual, sitting next to her, getting 
hints on what length “they” were wearing skirts in New York. 

Charlie May Fletcher, heroically corseted into lines more square 
than straight, presided. She presided sincerely. She was at ease 
with her gavel, but very parliamentary. 

Delia had been out of the Woman’s Club movement and the 
parliamentary procedure confused her. 

Mary Gale called a roll, read minutes, and proposed by-laws, 
which were passionately and technically argued. The women 



2l6 


TALK 


“rose to a point of order”; they “put things on the table.” It 
was gibberish to Delia. 

And then Charlie May said, “We have with us to-day our new 
chairman of the book-buying committee, Mrs. Reeves. Mrs. 
Reeves was a pioneer in what we may call the newest woman 
movement. First we struggled for higher education for women, 
then for the vote, and now for the job. But even that last struggle 
has become a fact. Mrs. Reeves was that fact when the struggle 
for higher education was still intense. I think we can be very 
proud to have Mrs. Reeves with us to-day.” 

A lump came into Delia’s throat; her eyes dimmed. This was 
sweet of Charlie May. But how queer to be praised on what she 
had been blamed for! Charlie May herself had told her “it was 
kinda common to work in a store.” 

“And now Mrs. Reeves will advise us as to our most practical 
method in the purchase of our first large supply of books.” 

Mary Gale rose. 

“Madam Chairman, may I make a suggestion? I want to 
inform the committee and Mrs. Reeves that we have received 
letters from the United Book Company in New York, and from 
Bland and Company in Louisville, as follows. And before I read 
these letters, Madam Chairman, I want to suggest to Mrs. Reeves 
and the committee that our decision is important. The jobber 
gives us the best discount, but we must pay parcel postage; Bland 
will give us a large discount on our first order and only ten per 
cent in the future. But parcel postage from Louisville is cheaper 
than from New York.” 

“You have heard the secretary. Are there any remarks?” 

“I move that the letters be discussed.” 

“It has been moved that the letters from the United Book 




TALK 


217 


Company and from Bland and Company be discussed. Is there 
a second to that motion ?” 

Delia didn’t know what they were talking about in manner or 
matter. For years she had tried to forget the store. But her 
memories held nothing about jobbers and parcel post. There 
had been no parcel post. And when she wanted a book she had 
written a letter to its publisher, who sent her a bill, which she 
paid. 

“Mrs. Page Reeves has the floor,” said Charlie May. 

What was the floor and what did you do with it when you had 
it? Evidently they expected her to say something. Delia had 
nothing to say. She opened her lips. Her mouth dried; her 
tongue stuck to her teeth. She felt sickish. 

They seemed to have to stand when they talked. 

She would have to stand. 

She felt Mrs. Reeves looking at her. Of course the sleeve in 
her black velvet dress didn’t set exactly right, though it did come 
from Louisville. Nobody would notice it. If they did, she would 
explain. . . . She hated Mrs. Reeves enough to get strength from 
her hatred. She stumbled to her feet. . . . 

There were some words they all started with. What were 
they? . . . 

The boards in the floor waved up to meet her, or were they 
moving from side to side? They were oiled, on account of the 
dust. That sliver of jade around Mrs. Reeves’ throat, was it 
whirling by itself? How could it? 

She had known everybody in the room but Rhoda Bassett all 
her life, why should they scare her because she was standing; and 
they were not! 

“Madam,” began Delia. What was the next word? She felt 



2l8 


TALK 


a sick horror, a panic; things went blackish—“madkm . . . er 
. . . madam ... I ... er ... it ... I can’t ... I don’t 
... I wouldn’t. ...” Her knees wobbled. She found her 
chair and sank into it. 

Her throat ached and her head ached and she hated Mrs. 
Reeves. She hated Rhoda Bassett. What right had she there? 
And Delia hated Charlie May for so tactfully and suavely cover¬ 
ing her failure. She would never come to another meeting! Her 
head ached. She wasn’t well, anyway. 

The meeting droned on. 

Phillipa Merriam said they must adopt a policy toward the 
suppressed books, those of Mr. D. H. Lawrence, Cabell, and 
Schnitzler. 

Mary Gale informed Madam Chairman and the committee that, 
since women had fought so hard for freedom, they should main¬ 
tain it. She considered the question out of order. 

After a long discussion of the parliamentary standing of the 
question, they discussed the question. 

Charlie May said that as chairman she had no voice. She then 
proceeded to voice the opinion that since there were so many 
books that were not controversial, why handle those that were? 
Mary Gale said it was a question of principle. 

It was laid on the table. 

D. H. Lawrence, Cabell, Schnitzler was more strange language 
to Delia. Frightened, she felt like Rip Van Winkle wakened to a 
new world after a long sleep. 

When the meeting adjourned, the women hovered about her, 
being nice, trying to put her at ease. Charlie May joked about 
her own first public speech and what a fizzle it had been. It was 
funny what standing did to your wits. 




TALK 


219 


Delia smiled palely. 

Later, she telephoned Charlie May that she could not be on 
that committee. She hadn’t been well, she had so many head¬ 
aches. Charlie May said getting out would do her good. Delia 
said she had been having trouble with help; she had to look after 
her home. Voice sharpened, Charlie May mentioned civic duty. 
The city, the larger home, must be looked after. Delia owed 
something to the community. 

Delia said she owed it to her family to take care of herself. 
She was going up to Louisville to see a doctor about her head¬ 
aches. Doctor Emery didn’t understand her case. 

Doctor Emery had told her to play golf. But when she went 
out to the Country Club she saw Phillipa Merriam in knicker¬ 
bockers. Delia remembered that old bloomer-girl cartoon and her 
horror of it. Again she had that image of dark caves and con¬ 
torting things that moved and fought. . . . 

She said it was disgraceful of Phillipa to appear like that “at 
her age.” 

“Speak for yourself, John!” Charlie May had said, “I’m going 
to get a pair as soon as my gluten bread comes. They say if you 
eat fruit for breakfast, and fruit for lunch, and a regular dinner 
except for this gluten bread. ...” 

“But aren’t you afraid of weakening your health?” said Delia. 

“Dieting? In such a cause? Lives could be lost for less! 
Think of being able to wear one of those Egyptian dresses like 
Rhoda Bassett’s!” 

At home, Delia had locked herself in her room to walk up and 
down, to throw herself on the bed, and to walk up and down 
again. Doctor Emery was a fine kind of a doctor to send her 
where she’d see sights like Phillipa. Now she was so upset she’d 




220 


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have another headache. She began to get angrier and angrier at 
Doctor Emery. 

The day after the Civic Club meeting Mrs. Reeves came to say 
that Delia had no right to resign because she had been confused 
over her first public address. It was Delia’s duty to put her 
knowledge and experience with books at the service of her com¬ 
munity. Mrs. Reeves, on the band wagon, played in the 
orchestra. 

Delia protested that she never ordered books as they were 
ordered now. 

“My! Details may change, but principles are always the 
same, Delia. People are going to say you are shirking. It isn’t 
fair to Page.” 

“Nobody realizes that I’m not well, Mother Reeves!” 

Delia went to Louisville. The first doctor she saw pronounced 
her well, the next one admitted that she was nervous, and a third 
one said she had nerves. Every symptom he described she 
claimed, and in a few days she had them. 

When Eudora Dexter came to Merville, Delia wasn’t well 
enough to go to see her. 

Page was. 


4 

Eudora had the love of place. Merville was etched into her 
brain and heart. She was forty. She had to keep trained to 
the perfection of fitness. She could not slack. Always she could 
rest herself with an image of that town. 

The square, edging the quiet little green park, and the gurg- 



TALK 


221 


ling stone nymph in its center; the streets leading from it, shaded 
by broad genial trees, leaned by no sharp winds, for sharp winds 
were few in Merville; groups of pretty women, of appreciative 
men talking on corners or in front of stores, “walking up the 
street together” gaily; the lovely columned houses set far back 
on wooded lawns; thus Eudora thought of it, getting a sort of sus¬ 
tenance from its physical aspect. Then she would remember the 
river, its narrow deep greenness winding around tiny islands of 
emerald-blue, purple shadows falling on it from the great old 
trees which dipped gently over steep high flowered banks. She 
would remember the time she jumped off the footbridge and how 
Page Reeves jumped in after her. He was mingled with her 
memories. 

And when she came home he alone was unchanged. Charlie 
May devoted herself to dieting and committees. Phillipa Mer- 
riam, golf mad, had inherited her mother’s Temperance League 
activity in athletic form. Pilch Trenton swore that her fourth 
child was born on the eighth hole near the pond, and that his 
first word was “stymie.” Lee Utley was in Washington, electri¬ 
fying Congress with his clothes when he wasn’t being imposed 
upon by lady lobbyists. Most of the men had no interests 
stronger than hunting and golf and Bourbon. 

Everybody told Eudora how sorry he or she was for Page. 
Delia hadn’t kept up with him. The men blamed her for losing 
her looks; Charlie May blamed her for not doing club work; 
Phillipa Merriam blamed her for not playing golf. Of course, 
accepting her individuality, they said, “That’s Delia Reeves, but 
it’s hard on Page.” All agreed that she was a bore. 

And Page was not a bore. Always he had been able to fool 
himself; he was the romantic hero, come after hardship into 



222 


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fortune. And so he had preserved his vitality and charm. He 
was a good conversationalist. Before he was sufficiently emanci¬ 
pated to leave Delia every evening, he had turned to books and 
conceived a liking for them. He read widely. He played a fair 
game of golf and performed no wordy post-mortems afterward; he 
played a fair game of bridge and of Mah Jongg, and a perfect 
game of poker. His hair and skin were still russet brown, his 
eyes still bright and black. He looked young and lithe ’and 
healthy. 

Eudora saw him for the first time at the Country Club. 

She was wearing a plain little sport suit of golden brown. Her 
Waist, softest golden-brown silk, was made like a man’s working 
ishirt, exotic in its simplicity. The men asked their wives why 
they didn’t wear “simple things like that.” The wives answered 
that dressmakers who could make simple things like that fit 
charged more than a year’s golf balls for them. 

When Page came in the door of the rustic clubhouse, it seemed 
to Eudora that he personified the beauty and the happy, genial 
charm of Merville. She loved the way his browned face lighted 
when he saw her, the way he said, “Eudora!” as if-his life had 
been a waiting for that moment. 

And it seemed to him that his life had been a waiting for that 
moment. 

They walked out of the door together, across the golf links, 
and down toward the river. 

Charlie May winked significantly at Phillipa Merriam. 

Page and Eudora sat on the steps that led to the swimming 
float, and talked. 

Eudora told him about her life in New York and about Lindley 




TALK 


223 


Campbell. He was so happy now with his new wife. She told 
him about young Lindley, who was going to be a doctor. 

Page told her about his miracle and what it meant to be free 
of financial strain. He scarcely mentioned Delia, but he won¬ 
dered about Janice, what she wanted and why. 

They talked to each other simply, as children do, about them¬ 
selves, about the little things. 

And then they began to share memories. “Do you remember 
the time when . . or, “that day at the county fair and . . 

They stayed at the club for supper. 

Risking no argument with Delia, Page had Jake Jenkins, now 
the club factotum, telephone that he couldn’t get back. “No’m,” 
said Jake (the phone was in the main room), “I don’t know why. 
No’m, I hain’t got the slightest idea wheah he is now.” And 
everybody looked at Page and laughed. 

Page and Eudora ate at a big table with the Fletchers and 
the Merriams and Mary Gale and her suitor, a solemn social 
worker from Cincinnati. 

After supper Page and Eudora went back to the river. 

They found a tiny ledge of land extending almost to a small 
round island. On it was a broad tree, black against the moon¬ 
light; the river was narrow and deep, moon-stained silver and 
apple green, and, where the canon was steepest, moon-stained to 
gold and dark blue. 

To Page it was magic, fairyland, the far place where dreams 
come true. 

To Eudora it was Merville. 

They needed no prelude. 

He took her hand; both trembled. 

And all of beauty was in that quickening of their pulses, in 



224 


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that flow of quivering feeling that moved them to desire. It 
was a flow that called for more, that knocked desperately at the 
doors of their consciousness. It was a flow that started agony 
when they kissed each other, agony because kissing was not 
enough. 

They drew apart. Both had tear-filled eyes; both ached with 
tenderness and strength. 

This was not young love, love topping unknown barriers. This 
was deep, demanding, controlled, and exquisitely wilful. 

“Oh, my dear!” said Eudora. 

“Yes,” he said. His voice caught in his throat. “We must 
talk, we must plan,” he went on. 

“Sit over there, away from me, so I can think. Page, does 
Delia care anything about you any more?” 

“I don’t think so.” 

Has she, has she any passion for you?” 

“No.” 

“Then darling, my darling, there’s nothing to keep us apart.” 
“You don’t think so, really?” 

“What could there be? Our children are grown. You can 
provide comfortably for Delia. She’ll give you a divorce, and 
well get married and live . . . happily ever afterward. Page 
darling, I do want you so.” She said it simply. “No, stay there, 
well for a minute or two, anyway.” 

“But ...” Page began. 

“There are no buts, my dear. There are no outside obstacles 
except sickness and death . . . and even they . . . But don’t 
let’s talk. . . . Aren’t you going to kiss me again?” 



TALK 


225 


4 

It was almost midnight when Page got home, to a home that 
seemed strange, not his. The tropic scenery papered on the wide 
front hall he admired with a curious detachment. It was beauti¬ 
ful, but it was not his any more. The way the staircase divided 
at the landing, the moonlight shining through the great window 
there. It was a beautiful house, the Gale house, but it was not his 
any more. 

The light was bright in their bedroom. 

Delia dozed, in bed. As he saw her he marked her unattractive¬ 
ness. Cold cream greased her face, her hair was slicked into a 
wispy plait. Usually he resented her lack of charm. Now that 
he was to escape, he pitied her for it. 

“Is that you, Page?” she murmured. 

“Yes.” 

When, how was he going to tell her? He dreaded unpleasant¬ 
ness, he dreaded the scene to come. 

Delia yawned, showing her gold fillings. She rubbed her eyes. 

“Well, I don’t see how you can expect me to keep any help! 
Supper on the table and waiting, getting colder every minute. 
And then for you to have Jake telephone that you wouldn’t be 
home! Why didn’t you let me know in time? Janice and I 
could have come out, too, instead of having supper all prepared 
and waiting. You ought to have seen Pinkie’s face when I told 
her. You know the way she sticks out her mouth when she’s 
mad, and I was afraid to say a word. But I’ve made up my 
mind when Tessum Napoleon comes home from Indianapolis I’m 



226 


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going to try him. I don’t know what his wife’s like. But she 
couldn’t be any worse than what I’ve had.” 

Lately when Delia wasn’t silent she was garrulous. But to 
come from Eudora (his heart warmed and hurried at the thought 
of her) to this! 

Delia sat up and blinked at the light. 

“What’d you have for supper?” 

“Oh, I don’t remember. Fried chicken, I reckon.” 

“You must have had a mighty good time, not to remember 
your supper! Who was there?” 

“The Fletchers and the Merriams and the Gales . . . oh, every¬ 
body.” 

“You know my head’s beginning to ache again. I wonder if I 
ought to go up to Louisville and see Doctor Houghton. 

The house gets so upset when I’m gone. . . . They just do any 
way. . . . But nobody knows what nerves are. . . . Was 
Eudora Dexter there?” 

“Yes.” Page turned away. Apparently he turned to put his 
clothes on a chair. 

“Why didn’t you say so in the first place? What’d she wear?” 
“Something brown.” 

“How does she look?” 

“Just the same.” 

“Page, will you just bring that little brown box of powders 
•on the top shelf of the medicine chest and a glass of water? And 
wouldn’t you like to give me a pillow off that chaise-lounge? I 
think I’ll try sleeping with an extra pillow.” 

The pillow did it. He couldn’t bear to bring a pillow for her. 
He decided that since she had to be told, telling her now would 
save him hours of dread. 

♦ 




TALK 


227 


He brought her the powders and a glass of water. He spilled 
a drop on the silk coverlid and she frowned anxiously and rubbed 
at it. 

He stood looking down on her. 

“Delia,” he said, “you don’t really care anything about me 
any more.” 

“For goodness’ sake, what’s the matter? Don’t I wear myself 
to a frazzle trying to make things run right? Don’t I. . . 

“I didn’t mean that.” He smiled faintly. “I mean, like when 
we were first married. You remember . . . the time you fell in 
the flour barrel. ...” Instantly he wished he hadn’t brought 
that up. That was a romantic memory connected with Delia. 
He wanted to forget it. 

“Yes, I remember the way you acted when that fireless cooker 
didn’t fix things tasty enough for you! Honestly, Page, you’d 
be wonderful as a taster in one of those big restaurants. That 
reminds me, Pinkie actually had the nerve to ask me for a fire¬ 
less cooker. They work now, all right. But the idea. With the 
wages I pay her, to want machines to do her work. No labor- 
saving devices in this house when you have to pay . . . ” 

Page writhed. 

“Delia, wouldn’t you be just as happy if I weren’t around?” 

“Page, have you been drinking? Better sleep it off if you have. 
Come on. Put out the light. If you’re not sleepy, I am.” She 
yawned widely. 

So complacent, so leisurely was her yawn that it maddened him. 

“I haven’t been drinking. I’m just asking you for a divorce.” 

“Page, are you crazy?” Delia sat up straight. 

“I’m sorry, Delia,” he went on, “that we haven’t hit it off. 
But you’ll be better when I’m out of your way, not getting on 




228 


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your nerves and everything. And I’ll make you comfortable, 
you may be sure of that.” 

It was ridiculous that at such a moment Delia should have had 
a powder halfway to her mouth, that she should have sneezed and 
spilled it on the floor. 

“Wait; I’ll get a cloth and wipe it up,” she said, starting out 
of bed. 

“My God! Aren’t you human?” He caught hold of her wrist. 
“I’m asking you for a divorce! ” 

She leaned back and stared at him. 

Always when she was startled she said the obvious thing. 
Delia’s mind worked best when she was startled. 

“O-oh! Why? said she. 

Nervous, excited, thrilled over the glamor of his evening, per¬ 
versely, he wanted her to know his romance, the beauty of it and 
its wonder. And then to have her ask him straight out. . . . 
Well, let her have it! 

“Because I love some one else.” 

“How . . . dare you? . . . How could you!” 

“It hasn’t anything to do with daring ... it just is.” He felt 
his eyes lighten at the thought of Eudora. He wished he could 
stop them. 

“Is that so? Well, do you think that, after you’ve taken my 
life and squeezed the youth out of it, you can just throw me 
aside like a worn-out shoe?” 

He wished she wouldn’t put it that way. How like Delia to 
make this as unpleasant as possible! 

“Oh dear! You’ve made my head ache worse with all this 
talk. How can you say such things when I have a headache! 
Page, there’s some reason for this . . . some other woman. . . . 



TALK 


229 


Page . . . is it Eudora Dexter! ” She stopped whining. Her 
voice came hard and tense. “That nasty thing . . . that com¬ 
mon . . . woman ... she needn’t think she can just take any 
man she wants. ...” 

Page leaned down and put his hands on her shoulders. Oh, 
how he wanted to shake her! 

“You will just take back every word you said. How dare you 
talk about her like that!” 

“You’re hurting me. Take your hands away. So it is Eudora. 
You’ve given yourself away beautifully.” 

Page hated her for putting it on the level of a vulgar intrigue. 

“There’s no use discussing it. I’ll sleep in the guest room 
to-night. And we’ll arrange matters without any trouble.” 

“Oh, we will, will we?” She glared at him and laughed hardly. 
She thought so clearly, she was so ready, that she was suddenly 
aware of having long foreseen this moment. She cared nothing 
for Page, but she valued roots, her home. And she had given 
Page her youth, she had sacrificed everything for him. When 
had she ever considered herself? Always others, and now . . . 
she wasn’t going to be humiliated. She wasn’t going to have 
people say that she couldn’t hold her husband, that she was 
being divorced for another woman. She wouldn’t stand for that. 
She would fight to keep her home together. She would protect 
Page from that common . . . 

“Page,” she said, coolly, “I wouldn’t dream of making it easy 
for her. If you want her badly enough . . . and she wants you 
you ran go away together. What do you think I am? You 
can elope together, you two, and be the talk of the country. Big 
headlines in the papers. ... She likes publicity, you know. Let 
people cut you everywhere you go. Let ’em know the truth. 



230 


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That when you got money you threw over your wife who struggled 
through your hard times with you. You won’t be the first man 
they’ve said that about ...” 

Page hating her, understood how people murder. He would 
like to stop that big, clattering mouth. He hated her. Her 
words kept echoing . . . damn her . . . damn her . . . damn 
her. . . . 

He turned and went out of the room and across the hall into 
the guest room. There, with the street light shining in at him, he 
sat in a stuffed chintz chair by the window. 

It was true, people would say that he had thrown over the 
wife of his struggling youth. That hurt his romantic ideal of 
himself. He put his hands over his eyes to shut out the light. 
Merville was proud of its White Way. Page had made a speech 
to the Council in favor of it. They said it was a good 
speech. . . . 

Nobody would have any sympathy for him. Everybody would 
blame him. He was a factor in the community, a director of the 
Merville National Bank. He was to be elected to the coveted 
Fourteen Club, to be one of fourteen men who dined together and 
discussed historical trends. Bob Fletcher said they were thinking 
of making him the next president of the Country Club ... He 
had been happy, before Eudora came. 

Then through his shut eyes he saw her. Her dear vividness. 
She was like a flame. It was wonderful that she loved him, she 
who had known everybody in New York worth knowing. Still she 
wanted him, Page Reeves. 

How beautiful she was. Funny, one of the loveliest things 
about her was the shape of her eyelids, true oval, and so delicate. 
Delia’s eyelids were bulbous like the thick stalk in cabbage leaves, 



TALK 


231 


he thought, vindictively. Eudora’s were like the calyx on a 
rose, and they closed so gently when he kissed her. . . . 

And her body, soft, lithe, against his . . . Every move she 
made seemed to sing. Oh, how graceful she was! He could see 
her leaning toward him under that blessed moon. Her mouth 
against his. . . . 

Again reliving it, he felt alive, not dead as he had been for 
years. The thrill of her! God! he wanted her so, he would go 
mad without her! He got up and walked and walked and walked. 
Across the room and around the room he walked and walked 
until he tired. 

Fatigued, relaxed, he sank into a chair. Could you depend on 
that thrill? That night when Delia fell into the flour barrel, he 
had loved her then, and now he hated her. 

Suppose it didn’t last with Eudora. Suppose he gave up every¬ 
thing for her and it went out on him? What would his life be 
like? She didn’t want to give up the stage for a while. He 
would be Eudora Dexter’s husband, with no position of his own, 
a man who had deserted the wife of his struggling youth. 

And what would Eudora be? He groaned softly. Why, he 
loved Eudora far too much to subject her to the sneers, the in¬ 
sults. ... An elopement. . . . 

He remembered a story of Edith Wharton’s about an exiled 
couple wandering, outcast, among the declasse of Europe. He 
couldn’t do that to Eudora. 

Persuade Delia to be decent and give him a divorce? It would 
be easier to persuade the devil! 

He put his head down on his arm, slumped in his chair, and 
sobbed. 





232 


TALK 


Toward morning he slept. 

Waking early, he wanted to get to the bathroom for his shave 
without encountering Delia. He couldn’t bear to see her. He 
tiptoed across the hall. He felt silly, like a small boy . . . and 
sillier still when he tried the door, to find it locked. 

He slipped downstairs to the lavatory, cursing himself for not 
doing that first. 

If he weren’t at the breakfast table what would Janice and the 
servants think? Anyway, he craved his coffee. 

Delia, puffy eyed, silent, poured it. 

“Say you were the little night owl, last night, weren’t you, 
Jase?” 

Page decided that Delia had certainly brought up Janice to 
have no respect for any one! 

“You are a cheerful pair of turtle doves! That reminds me, 
have you heard about the war monument Squire Preston’s giving 
Merville? To go in the court-house yard. A doughboy with a 
turtle dove on each shoulder. All right, if that isn’t cheering, I’ll 
tell you another. Evelyn Fletcher says if Billy doesn’t stop drink¬ 
ing so much she’s going to show her knees. There’s wifely control 
for you!” 

Delia sighed. 

“That will do, Janice,” said Page. 

“It will! Have you seen Mis’ Eudora since she’s back? She’s 
the prettiest thing I ever saw. Would you dream that she had a 
grown son? If I were a man I’d take her to the South Seas 
forever!” 

Delia left the table, slamming one dining room door after her. 



TALK 


233 


Page left the table, slamming the other dining room door 
after him. 

Janice shrugged her slender shoulders and took a fresh slice 
of toast. 



Since the Country Club was deserted of early week-day morn¬ 
ings Page planned to meet Eudora there at nine-thirty. He wished 
it weren’t so sunny and bright. The clear air, the om-oom-ooming 
of the telegraph poles irritated him. It should have been 


drizzling. 

Eudora, gorgeous in bright green, greeted him radiantly. 
“Page, I’m so happy, I could sing, I believe I could toe-dance 

and I can’t, really!” 

“Let’s go where we can talk.” 

Eudora glanced at him swiftly and quieted. They sat down 


on the steps, their steps. 

“ Well? ” . , , 
“Eudora, it’s no use. I might have known. Delia won t do it. 

“Won’t do what?” 

“Give me a divorce.” 

“Well, that’s all right,” said Eudora, cheerily. “One fine day 
we’ll depart. After she comes to she won’t mind much. She 11 
find some doctor to fall in love with and he can write a book on 
her symptoms, poor Delia. I feel sorry for her, but what is is. 
Leaving me out of it, your love for each other is done, finished, 

anyway, isn’t it?” _ T , 

“Oh yes! Eudora, you’re wonderful. But you don t think I m 

the sort of skunk to subject you to an elopement. Think of the 



2 34 


TALK 


ugly talk. Did you ever read that story of Edith Wharton’s about 
the couple who. ...” • 

“Yes, I read it, ages ago. But the world do move. Anyway, 
Page, I’ve been through one scandal. It didn’t hurt a bit. 
Honey, we can find plenty of people to play with, who wouldn’t 
care if you made divorcing your favorite pastime.” 

“What kind of people!” 

“The veribest. High society, dull enough to be respectable, but 
isn’t. As for the artistic crowd, a divorce gives you tone with 
them. You’re just nothing without one!” 

“You brave wonder. You’re whistling to keep up my courage. 
Think of the headlines in the paper.” 

As a whisper in the dark he heard Delia’s “Eudora likes pub¬ 
licity, you know.” 

And Eudora said, “Br’er Fox, don’t throw me in the brier 
patch. I thrive in headlines. But, honey, this must be the last. 
Too many divorces spoil the broth. Hollywood has sort of satia¬ 
ted the public. You can be sure of me, darling. If I tried another 
after you the papers wouldn’t give me a stickful.” 

“I couldn’t let you go through with it,” said Page, solemnly. 
Eudora turned and looked at him. Her sherry-colored eyes 
darkened. 

“Why?” said she. 

Women, always asking why, were alike, he thought, irritably. 
“You know why. What would our life be? We’re not so 
young; we have to have solidity.” 

Eudora beautifully lifted her arms above her head. 

“Young? Love is youth, Page! We’re got it and we’re alive!” 
Page shook his head. 

As for our life,” said Eudora, “you could go in some law firm 



TALK 


235 


in New York. Think what your gift o’ gab could do to those 
juries! And we’d have a wee apartment. I know stacks of 
people. And we’d travel heaps. We’d live . . . and, oh, how 
we’d love each other! But we’d never count on it too much, we’d 
never strain it. Isn’t it silly the way people talk about testing 
love as if it were a steel girder? It’s a crystal thread. Bingo in 
the right place and it’s gone! But we don’t have to bingo! 

She evidently felt as he did about it; she didn’t want to say 
so. But surely she must realize that going off together was the 
crudest test that love could stand. Bingo, indeed! 

Law firm. He hadn’t opened Blackstone for years. To study 
it again, and in another state, to work over it. He couldn’t be 
just Eudora Dexter’s husband. Of course he had money, that is, 
by Merville standards. . . . 

Think of what his friends would say. It was easy for Eudora 
to consider her friends, wild people, probably. But think of 
what his friends, in Merville, would say, and rightly. What 
would he say about a man who, after he got rich, deserted the 
wife of his struggling youth for an actress? He’d cut a fine 
kind of a figure! 

They must sacrifice each other. Great love, ennobling, could 
stand sacrifice. They would sacrifice each other on the altar of 
their love. 

“Eudora,” he said, “I love you more than . . . well, I love 
you too much to let you drag yourself through the mire for me. 
I love you so much that I must give you up.” 

Eudora looked deep into his great black eyes, looked as if she 

could scarcely believe what she saw. 

“We must . . he made an oratorical gesture with his hand. 

Eudora watched it. 



236 


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Too hurt to feel hurt, she gazed then at the river, the dear 
green river with its broad trees. Merville, so charming, so hind, 
so beautiful. . . . That great silver poplar spreading on all sides, 
unbent by sharp winds. Oh, could it withstand sharp winds? 
As for Page, he was bound up with her love of place. A part of 
her would always love him. He was not strong. He didn’t want 
to go away with her because he was afraid of what people would 
say. That was his marriage to Delia, that was their likeness, and 
it was no crystal thread like love. It was a steel girder. No 
test could break it! 

Eudora knew herself. Her heart would not break. She would 
love again some day. Because a lover wasn’t strong was not 
love’s fault. And because she loved love and was kind, in being 
cruel to Page she would be kind. If she could cure him of 
herself . . . 

“Bunkum, Page!” said she. “Be honest. You don’t want to 
give up your standing. You don’t want to buck public opinion. 
Sacrifice? Old stuff, my dear. It isn’t done any more, by 
honest people.” 

Page resented that. She was laughing at his romantic picture 
of himself. She was hard, like Janice, not of his generation, that 
considered sentiment the most beautiful thing in life! 

“Really?” But he turned and looked at her. She was so beau¬ 
tiful! He reached for her, touching her hand. Why it was like 
electricity, that very touch! 

As if from fire, she jerked her hand away and jumped to her 
feet. 

“No fond farewells. No! No!” Suddenly she ran. 

She ran like a hunted thing, fleet as a deer, her body moving 
like a song. 



TALK 


237 


Page tried to run after her. Of course he couldn’t. She was 
in expert training. He wasn’t. 

He saw Charlie May Fletcher and Phillipa Merriam getting 
out of a roadster. What would they think if they saw him trying 
to catch Eudora Dexter and puffing and blowing from the effort! 
He hid behind that poplar tree. 

Eudora ran past them. 

“Hi, Eudora!” called Charlie May. 

But Eudora didn’t stop. Tears ran down her cheeks. She 
didn’t care if they saw them, but she wanted to get home quick 
and pack and leave. Packing, getting tickets, wiring for reser¬ 
vations . . . doing something. Stay and suffer? Not she! Work 
was the answer. Back in New York, she’d create a new act. 
Work and young Lindley, and some day some other man. Even 
then she knew there would be another man. 

And the next day, to Phillipa, Charlie May said: “Wasn’t it 
funny, the way Eudora ran past us? I wonder why she didn’t 
stop and tell us good-by when she was called back to New York 
so unexpectedly. I reckon she doesn’t care so much about her old 
Merville friends now that she’s such a celebrity. Phillipa, did 
you read in the paper where it said that boiled potatoes without 
butter weren’t fattening? I wonder ...” 

There was only a ripple of gossip about Page’s brief but obvious 
devotion to Eudora, because the report came from a Western 
town that Doctor Manston, the evangelist, had been visited by a 
vigilance committee when his liaison with a local palmist was 
discovered. 



23 s 


TALK 


“Well, I hope there was a shotgun handy,” said Pilch Trenton. 

“I don’t believe those committees go armed,” protested a bank 
examiner from Minnesota, in Merville for the day. 

“Hell! I meant for the convenience of the preacher. No 
Kentuckian would let a committee wait on him and his affairs!” 

Squire Preston poked the tiny wood fire. “I can think of one 
circumstance. . . . Suppose the palmist wasn’t pretty? Wouldn’t 
they send representatives from the Hoptown asylum?” 

“That won’t do, Squire. There never was a Kentucky woman 
that wasn’t pretty, somehow. Now that cousin of the Merriams 
from Tisdale. Her face ain’t much, but she’s got the prettiest 
little feet, and she kinda sorta knows how to wear ’em.” 

And Mrs. Humphrey, looking for a house-girl, met Delia in 
Shak Rag, where she had gone to get Tessum Napoleon’s Indian¬ 
apolis address. 

“I went in the back yard,” whispered Delia, “and the grass 
was full of dock and dandelions, and Henry hasn’t clipped the 
hedge in weeks, though I tell him every day . . . and I told 
him . . . but he left the porch furniture out on Hallowe’en, and 
those awful boys took it. We found one chair up at the normal 
school in a tree! Sometimes I think I can’t stand it any longer!” 

“Too bad!” soothed Mrs. Humphrey. “Delia, we’ve got a 
punctured tire. Can’t you give me a lift?” 

On the way to town, Mrs. Humphrey said: “Wasn’t that story 
about Doctor Manston the funniest thing you ever heard? A 
palmist!” 

“Funny! I think it was disgraceful!” 

“Well, men must be men, you know.” Mrs. Humphrey raised 
her eyebrows at the back of Henry’s kinky black hair. 



TALK 


239 


Delia shook her head, signifying that he couldn’t hear from the 
front seat. 

“I’m an old woman, my dear.” 

“Now, Mis’ Alice!” Delia protested. 

“And I’m going to tell you what I’ve learned. Don’t you 
think I’ve always known about the major’s trips to Louisville? I 
used to smile to myself when I’d go in the bathroom after he’d 
dressed for the early train. It was full of the smell of talcum 
powder and toilet water! 

“Of course I knew that the major’s spiritual side was true to 
me and I didn’t care a bit about the other. But I wouldn’t let 
him know that I didn’t care. Men like to think that their wives 
think that’s so important. It would have made the major un¬ 
happy to think that it didn’t make any difference to me. And I 
don’t believe in making people unhappy.” 

Mrs. Alice pressed Delia’s hand as she got out of the car, and 
Delia realized that her confidence was given in the same spirit 
which had moved Mrs. Gale to unburden herself about Mary, 
years ago. When you were in trouble, people confided similar 
worries to make you feel better. 

It made Delia feel worse. It made her realize that people 
were talking about Page’s attentions to Eudora, 

But Eudora had left Merville. Delia had saved Page. Glow¬ 
ing with self-righteousness, in some vague and twisted manner, 
she concluded that she had again sacrificed herself for her family. 
Looking back over her life, she could see that while it had been 
hard, it had never been wrong. She had kept the Ten Com¬ 
mandments. And now she never missed a Sunday in church. 

And Mrs. Reeves, who rarely came near her, actually offered 
to teach her how to play bridge. At the Country Club’s weekly 



240 


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bridge luncheon, Phillipa Merriam had said: “I saw Page last 
Wednesday but he was so absorbed in Eudora that I couldn’t get 
a word in. Isn’t it wonderful how beautiful she is!” 

“Page is very chivalrous!” said Mrs. Reeves, crisply. Thus 
she implied that the pursuit had been Eudora’s. 

Delia knew that Mrs. Reeves was grateful to her for saving 
Page. Delia’s painful intuition made her aware that Mrs. Reeves 
rather wondered how she had done it. 

But the two women sat down one evening, with a deck of cards 
and a book on bridge. Faltha Reeves still looked about forty- 
one, in her straight little crepe-de-chine frock, the color of her 
sand-colored eyes. 

Delia wore a dilapidated serge dress. She kept her old dresses 
to “wear in the house where nobody would see her.” 

She tried to concentrate on doubling and bidding and signaling. 
Everything seemed to have a language of its own, and all the 
languages were strange to Delia. Clubs, and now bridge. . . . 
How alone she was! . . . Nobody talked her language! What 
was her language? 

“You signal your partner,” Mrs. Reeves was saying. 

Why so much fuss and complication over a game? Remember 
the cards already played. Was this supposed to be pleasure? 

Delia began to feel a dull pain between her shoulder blades. 

“I’m waiting for you to play, Delia. Now watch the dummy 
hand.” 

What was the dummy hand? 

“I’m sorry, Mother Reeves. I’ve got such a backache, I can’t 
see straight. I’ll just run and get some of my powders. Or 
wouldn’t you like to get them for me, Page? The little round 



TALK 


241 


box with the blue on the edge, in my medicine chest. And a 
glass of water, please.” 

Page, comfortable in a big chair, with the light shining right on 
his book, was using it as a shield for his thoughts. With this 
lovely home, with his security, with his position growing more 
important in the community, everything was for the best. He 
had been asked to be president of the Country Club, vice-presi¬ 
dent of the Merville National, and a delegate to the Kentucky 
Bankers’ Convention. Eudora had called his beautiful senti¬ 
ments “bunkum.” It was her fault that he had to hide ridicu¬ 
lously behind a tree while she ran. . . . Oh, but the way she 
ran! ... her lithe figure moving like a song. . . . That night 
when the moon . . . her lips on his. . . . When those memories 
came he had to walk, walk, walk until he was exhausted. It was 
his only relief. 

And now he had to go upstairs for those damned powders for 
Delia. She used to wait on herself; now she was as demanding 
as his mother used to be. Delia seemed to think she owned him. 
But he couldn’t refuse. His mother would notice and his roman¬ 
tic self would notice. He had sacrificed the woman he loved. 
(He didn’t agree with Eudora’s opinion of sacrifice; he blamed 
her for it.) He was a hero; he would act like one. 

He went for Delia’s powders. He couldn’t find a box with a 
blue edge. 

“Delia, I can’t find it!” 

“Look in the bureau!” she called. 

“It isn’t there.” His voice sharpened. 

“It must be there.” 

“Well, it isn’t.” 

“Oh, Page, I remember now. I had that prescription filled at 



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Mayfield's. I thought I had it filled in Louisville. Mayfield’s 
uses square white boxes. Look in the medicine chest again!” 
And then to Mrs. Reeves she said: “I think it’s safest to get pre¬ 
scriptions in Louisville. You never can tell. But I was so late 
waiting at Doctor Houghton’s, and I thought this time I’d just 
try Mayfield’s. And Mr. Mayfield said certainly he’d fill it care¬ 
fully! I didn’t suggest that he wouldn’t, but he looked kind of 
miffed as if I had, and I said ...” 

“What time is it, Page?” interrupted Mrs. Reeves as he came 
in with the square white box and a glass of water. 

Page put the glass on the table and got out his watch. 

“Page! Don’t put that glass on that beautiful mahogany. It 
’ll make a ring. Here, use your paper!” 

I was reading the paper,” said Page, furiously. 

“Well, use part of it. Anyway, I was watching. You were 
reading that big red book. You can’t read two things at once.” 

“I want to turn to the paper when I want it.” 

There.” Delia took the paper and placed the glass on it. 

“It’s nine thirty,” said Page. 

Delia put out her tongue and put the powder on it, and gulped 
her water. She grimaced. “Ugh!” she said. 

Page watched her. 

Mrs. Reeves turned away. “I think I’ll be going now” she 
announced. 

111 come Wlth y° u ‘ And don’t wait up for me, Delia. I want 
to see a man at the Elks Club.” 


“Q-oh! Page, don’t forget to see that all the windows are 
locked when you come in. You just can’t trust the servants to 
do anything. You know, I have Tessum now, but I don’t know 
how he’s going to work out, after he’s been in Indianapolis. I 




TALK 


243 


don’t know whether I’ll try his wife or not. Mrs. Gale had her 
once, but she can’t remember ...” 

“'Where is Janice to-night?” asked Mrs. Reeves while she 
adjusted her close little hat at the hall mirror. 

“Why ... er ... I don’t know.” 

“She never knows where Janice is!” said Page, resentfully. 
“Instead of so much talk about the young people, there ought to 
be a little talk about the mothers. Last night I heard Janice 
coming in at three A. M. and Delia was sound asleep.” 

“What am I going to do? The doctor says I have to get my 
sleep. And last week, when I had all that bother with Henry 
for not cutting the hedge, I didn’t get a decent night. ...” 

“I heard about last night,” said Mrs. Reeves, grimly. “They 
had cocktails at Charline Fletcher’s and then they danced at the 
club until one. I was with Alice, and had to go because she 
insisted ... I heard that oil man, Lank Fisher, they call him, 
had three bottles of gin, and after sharing it with the crowd they 
all went in swimming. Luckily we are having a warm autumn. 
I heard that some of the girls wore teddies, and some . . . 
didn’t. ...” 

“Mother Reeves! Not Janice! I know my own daughter. 
She does what the other girls do, but not things like that. Janice 
wouldn’t.” 

“I didn’t hear about Janice. I was afraid to ask.” 

“You see, Delia?” 

“I don’t see. But just to be sure, I’ll speak to Janice to¬ 
morrow.” 

And all the way to St. Christopher’s Apartments Page and Mrs. 
Reeves discussed Mah Jongg plays. They saw so little of each 
other now. Their suppers were no longer necessary, and since 



244 


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the custom of calling had been supplanted by afternoon tea Mrs. 
Reeves led an active social life. Her pimento, onion, and roque- 
fort-cheese sandwiches had their just fame. 

S' 

That night Janice was far out on the K. and T. pike in T.anlr 
Fisher’s roadster. 

The most attractive “oiler” in Merville, of an excellent Louis¬ 
ville family, with breeding and charm and looks, he was every 
girl s goal. He had a sense of humor and a sense of humanity. 
He flirted easily, and Merville said he was the most indifferent 
man it ever saw! 

It said that Janice was the most indifferent girl. 

Janice’s indifference went deep. It defended her against an in¬ 
tuition that would have destroyed her. During her young girlhood 
she had prayed, “Please, God, don’t let me care about anybody.” 
She had learned to care about mathematics, and her interest in 
human beings was of a piece with it. It was abstract. She 
watched them act in patterns. She figured, “If I say this, So-and- 
so will say that.” In her relations to men this interest was 
keenest. Charline Fletcher said that if Janice would only give 
more time to it, she would make a perfect vamp, because she 
“doesn’t give a damn. They fall like rugs for Janice!” 

She was giving time to Lank Fisher because he had eluded her. 
She wanted to see if she could get him. 

The roadster went faster, faster, faster. Janice put her face 
back toward the stars. There was no moon. 

Lank Fisher drove up a winding lane and stopped the car. 

Jan was subtly silent. 



TALK 


245 


They looked at the stars. 

“How nice this is!” she murmured. 

“What?” 

She knew he would say that. 

She turned to him and turned her eyes on him. She lifted her 
eyebrows and lowered her lids. She could do it to a doll, and hers 
was an infallible recipe even in the dark. 

You look into a man’s eyes with strength back of yours. For 
a second you think hard on making his irises go liquid somehow, 
as if they would flow into yours. They go liquid. His face sort 
of fuses, goes mobile, and his eyes actually merge with yours. 
You feel warm and happy for a moment. Sometimes, oh, rarely, 
a catch, like the opening of a shutter, comes just below your 
throat. Janice called that a “thrill.” She seldom got it. 

“What?” he repeated. 

“The stars,” she said, demurely. 

“Oh. You’re a queer girl, you are.” 

Jan knew that if she said “Why?” there would be a very en¬ 
joyable discussion of herself. But since this was to be his party 
and not hers, since she wanted to get him, she said, “You’re not 
exactly queer, but you’re different from the other men that come 
to Merville. You’ve seen more. I don’t know exactly how to put 
it, but you seem to understand things. Have you ever been 
psycho-analyzed ? ” 

“No. Of course I’ve read a lot about it.” 

“I knew it!” 

With Northern men she discussed sex. It always interested and 
sometimes excited them. Southern men were quicker to pet, and 
slower to talk about it. 

“Do you believe in all that Freud says?” she asked. 



246 


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“No! I think he emphasizes some things too much.” 

She had her signal. If he called sex “some things/’ it was her 
cue to say, “Yes. But you have such a wonderful understanding 
of human nature. I imagine that it’s so useful to you in 
business.” 

“Now it’s funny that you should say that to-night! This very 
morning we were having some trouble with a couple of drillers, 
and I just talked to them as if they were friends. Made them see 
that we were on the same side and not antagonists, that we must 
all work together.” 

“I wish I could have heard you,” she said, fervently, in her 
soft little voice, “I just love to see a man who can manage 
other men.” 

“Do you know, the first time I saw you I knew that you were 
the kind of a girl a man could talk to. I remember you had on a 
fluffily little ruffily dress—sort of greenish, wasn’t it?” 

A dim ghost inside of Janice sighed. This ghost stalked occa¬ 
sionally at dances, watching the door for some strange man who 
never came. Jan laid it with, “You damn fool, what do you 
want, a sheik?” But the ghost wanted a man who was not get- 
table, a man who was at least as interesting as calculus. Even it 
didn’t hope for quarternions, for even this dead shred of her 
romantic self didn’t believe in fairies. It knew that she would 
many a man who was as thrilling as relativity, but it knew that 
such a man would never come. 

“What are you sighing about?” said Lank Fisher. 

“Nothing.” 

He started the car. Jan was pleased. Was he eluding her, 
could she class him with, say, trigonometry? 

They backed out of the lane. 




TALK 


247 


The crisp fall air tingled their faces as the motor sped out the 
pike. 

“You know what you are?” he said. “You’re a darned clever 
little flatterer.” 

“Maybe, a little,” she confessed. “But it’s too much trouble 
to make things up. Easier to tell the truth. I usually do. Now 
I didn’t tell you that you ought to go into politics, did I? Most 
men like to hear that. I don’t think you’d be good in politics; 
you wouldn’t like to knuckle under to the machine. And I don’t 
believe you’d speak so well. You see, I can be honest. But I 
tell you what I believe you could do.” 

Up another lane, between cornfields where the whitened stubs 
were dying, spurted the car. Lank Fisher stopped it. 

“What?” 

“I believe you could write. With your knowledge of human 
nature it’s almost wicked not to use it. When you see the stuff 
in the magazines nowadays, I’ve just stopped reading them!” 

“Little girl, you’re uncanny. I’ve often thought of writing up 
my experiences.” 

Whenever a man was not a professional man, he thought he 
could be a writer or a statesman on the side. 

“Could you write up your experiences with girls?” She turned 
her eyes on him. 

He reached down and turned out the lights. 

He took her hand. She let him hold it a second, and drew it 
lingeringly away. 

“May I?” He leaned toward her. 

Solid geometry. She hated men who asked. 

He kissed her. She was always trying for a thrill. She didn’t 
get one. 



248 


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“You’re a cold little thing. But you’re darned fascinating.” 

He kissed her again. 

She wriggled away. “Time to go home.” 

“Pl-ease.” 

“No,” she said, firmly. “Home, James.” 

His arms closed round her, tightened, hardened. She didn’t 
dodge. She Stared at him, gently, firmly. “No. Of course you’ll 
take me home when I want you to.” She touched his arm 
appealingly. 

Of course he took her home. He told her that she was a won¬ 
derful girl. He invited her to the next Country Club dance. He 
begged her to lunch with him and his mother who was coming 
in a few days. He wanted his mother to meet her. 

She had him. The fun of the chase passed, she had the queer 
sickish sensation of capture. She hated herself, but she loathed 
him. 

4 

The next morning it rained. 

Janice started out to the garage for the car. 

“Ja-n-ice!” Delia called her, “you left your bedroom windows 
wide open and the floor is a sight. And you know I don’t want 
you to take that car out in the rain and get it all spotted. You 
never think!” 

Janice rarely argued. She gave her tiny shrug and came back 
for her raincoat. 

Delia was standing in the back doorway to the kitchen. 

“Really, Pinkie! When I went all over town to find asparagus 





TALK 


249 


with long stems, to have you serve them cut off. I can’t stand 
this! The way you worry me to death.” 

Pinkie stuck out a shelflike lip. “It seems lak I can’t please 
you noways,” she grumbled. “I just better go so’s you can get 
somebody else. I done my best by you. Everybody says you’re 
the hardest woman to work for in the world, and God knows I 
believes them. ...” 

Delia clutched the door knob. She detested Pinkie and that 
lip of hers! But she was a good cook and Delia wasn’t certain 
about Tessum’s wife. . . . 

“Why, how silly of you! I’ve always been able to tell my help 
when something goes wrong.” 

Pinkie mumbled under her breath. 

“Oh, I really came out to tell you that you could have to-mor¬ 
row afternoon off . . . What’s that you say?” 

“Yas, ma’am. I’m going to take the rest of my natural-bom 
life off! I’m th’u!” 

“Well, really now! . . . Wait a minute, Janice.” 

Jan paused in the hall. 

“Were you going out in this rain without an umbrella?” 

“I never use an umbrella.” 

“You’ll catch your death of cold. I want to speak to you. 
Very well, Pinkie, if you feel that way,” loftily, she departed 
from the kitchen. 

“Mother, can’t it wait? I’ll be late for my class.” 

“Oh, that class! You’d think your living depended on it! 
No, it won’t wait.” 

Jan glanced at her wrist watch. She had a few minutes to 
spare. 

Delia led her into the parlor, a rose-damask room, never used. 



250 


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The furniture was protected with linen covers, removed twice a 
year to be laundered. They were being laundered now. A 
faint odor of camphor came from the cushions. 

But it was the one room easily shut off from the rest of the 
house. Delia was always “sh-shushing,” certain that the servants 
were listening, and that what they heard they would repeat all 
over town. 

Jan sat down on the sofa, Delia on an uncomfortable straight 
chair. 

“Don’t sit on that satin with that rain coat on! You’ll ruin 
it. Honestly, you have no respect for anything.” 

Janice stood. 

“Take it off, turn it wrong side out, and throw it over that 
marble table,” said Delia, patiently. 

Janice, her lips quirked, obeyed. 

“Janice, your grandmother said she heard that at Charline’s 
party, after you all danced until one, you went in swimming ” 

“Yes’m.” 

“She said that some of the girls wore their teddies.” 

“Drist’s dirt is always good, pure, and unadulterated.” 

“She insinuated that some of the girls didn’t wear teddies ” 

“Uh-huh.” 

“My darling child, I wouldn’t even ask you . . . it would 
break my heart if I thought . . . after all I’ve sacrificed ...” 

Mother, see that Winged Victory on the mantelpiece. It ain’t 
got no clothes on a-tall. And why nakedness is supposed to be 
awful! It’s awful when it’s ugly. But the other night, no matter 
what they were like, the ‘bodies were hid.’ Not a moon, as dark 

as pitch. You might have been bathing in black ink. Coats on 
the bank. . . .” 



TALK 


251 


“Oh, don’t tell me! What will become of you? What shall 
I do? And after all I’ve sacrificed . . Delia sniffled. 

Janice looked at her watch, at her mother, twisted her shoul¬ 
ders, and took off her tiny hat. 

“Now, mother, I reckon we’ll have to go through with this 
once and for all. Don’t you ever worry about me. Your little 
Janice is just about as helpless as a royal Bengal tiger. I can 
take care of myself. I only wish I couldn’t! Darn it! Which 
isn’t what I want to dwell on. What I want to know is what this 
sacrifice stuff has to do with our alleged nudity at the Country 
Club.” 

“I never heard such language!” 

“Read Freud.” 

“You haven’t an ounce of respect for me.” 

“Not a millimeter. Now don’t start crying. I feel sorry for 
you; I think you’re just pitiful. And I’ve got enough of you in me 
to beware of the traffic signs . . .Now what have you sacrificed 

for me?” 

“My whole life.” 

“Mother, Mrs. Gale told me that you were wonderful in that 
store you had before you married. Why did you give it up?” 

“I went into it to earn a living, and everybody understood. It 
wouldn’t have been fair to your father to keep on with it. People 
talked terribly when I even considered . . . 

“And then what?” 

“How could I keep on with it when everybody thought it was 
wrong? Your father and your grandmother and everybody. 
Charlie May, too, and now she says I was a pioneer. She was 
down on me as hard as the rest when I was trying . . . That s 
the way people are,” said Delia resentfully. 



252 


TALK 


“You said it! And that’s why it doesn’t pay to listen.” 

“You can’t let people talk about you. ...” 

“Why not? They talk about everybody for something, but 
nobody ever does anything about it. Why everybody knows 
that Major Humphrey lived with Miss Emmeline Hunter up in 
Louisville for years, and when she came here on a visit people 
talked terribly, and gave parties for her. When you once belong 
in this, our sovereign state, it doesn’t make a damn bit of differ¬ 
ence what you do, people ’ll love you just the same. It’s rather 
remarkable. And it doesn’t prevent their tearing reputations into 
shreds, either. Look at Mis’ Eudora. She’s got the key. She 

doesn’t pay any attention to gossip except when she can cash in 
on it.” 

“A fine example,” Delia sputtered. “A household word!” 
“Dad thinks ...” Seeing Delia’s throat constrict, Jan 
swerved off: “Mother, most people think it’s all right for women 
to work now, whether they have to or not. Why don’t you start 
another store or something?” 

“You have no right to catechise me! I brought you in here 
to speak to you! It’s because I’ve sacrificed my life and my 
health for you and your father that I’m worn out now. How 
could I start anything, with my health ... the least little thing 
makes eveiy nerve quiver. Nobody who hasn’t nerves could 

ever understand ... And my back ... and a headache almost 
every day. ...” 

“You’ve just used every speck of your margin doing 
hated for the last twenty years, and it’s done for 
Janice, clinically. 

“I did it for you and your father.” 

“You did it because you were scared of talk.” 








TALK 


253 


“You don’t know what it’s like to have a town down on you.” 

“Fate seems to be masquerading as the small town these days. 
Kind of an optimistic fate, I’d say. . . . And if I hurry I won’t 
be too late for my class!” 

“Just a minute. Your father said you didn’t get in last night 
until two. You never tell me anything,” wailed Delia. 

“Poor mother! I was out riding with Lank Fisher.” 

“Who is Lank Fisher?” 

“Louisville Fishers . . . money . . . everything, but not for 
me. Don’t plan a grand match for me. I’m not sure that mar¬ 
riage is in my line.” 

“Every woman wants a home and children. . . 

“Got to hurry.” Jan grabbed her rain coat. 

Delia heard it scrunch-nch. 

The chain loop hanger on its collar had scratched the table’s 
wooden edge. 

“Just look what you’ve done! The aggravations! Gladiola. 
Gladiola!” 

4 

As Delia went to the hall, she heard the kitchen door close 
slowly. They were gossiping in the kitchen. That’s why her 
house was never clean! They would gossip in there though she 
told them over and over she wouldn’t allow it. How she hated 
them! Servants would drive her crazy. . . . But if she didn’t 
watch Gladiola put oil on that scratch, it would never be done. 

The door bell rang. Delia started toward it, but no, it was 
Gladiola’s work. Gladiola shuffled to the door without an apron 



254 


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- ~ 

on. She had told Gladiola a hundred times always to wear her 
apron when she answered the door. They were worrying her 
to death purposely. 

It was Charlie May. 

Delia couldn’t keep her eyes from Charlie May’s umbrella. 

If she stood it up it would scratch the floor, waxed only yesterday. 

“Can Gladiola take this umbrella a second?” Charlie May was 
self-conscious about it. “I haven’t time to sit down. I came to 
explain why I phoned you yesterday about the lawn-mower. 
About a year ago a negro man borrowed my stepladder and 
didn’t bring it back, and I wanted to be sure it was you wanting 
the lawn-mower.” 

“Lawn-mower! I don’t know what you’re talking about. I 
have my own lawn-mower. And you didn’t telephone me!” 

“Well, whoever answered the phone said they’d give you the 
message.” 

“I’ll assure you I don’t know anything about it. I wouldn’t 
dream of borrowing anybody’s lawn-mower. Really. . . .” 

“For Heaven’s sake, Delia, don’t get mad at me about it!” 

“How absurd! I’m grateful to you for telling me. I’ll just 
call Tessum in about it, while you’re here.” 

“You will not. I’ve got to run. I’m due at a committee meet- j, 
ing this very minute. Where’s my umbrella?” 

Charlie May hurried all the way down the street. She told 
Phillipa that it was bad enough to hear Delia nag at Page; she 
drew the line at hearing her nag at her servants! 

“Tessum!” called Delia. “Wait, I’ll come out on the back 
porch. I don’t want you trailing your muddy feet on these rugs. 
Gladiola, you’d better turn the rugs wrong side out days like 
this. . . .” 







TALK 


255 


Tessum had grown into a wiry yellow replica of Vernon Castle. 
He had been with Delia two weeks and he bragged that she’d 
“tak a lot off’n him” because they “wuz in business together 
onct.” 

“Tessum, did you borrow Mrs. Fletcher’s lawn-mower?” 

“Yas’m. You see, it was thissa way. Ouah lawn-mower it got 
jes’ so hit wouldn’t cut butter, no’m it wouldn’t even cut thick 
cream . . . not this heah boughten cream, but the kind of cream 
you yusta get.” 

“Tessum, I want to know why you borrowed that lawn-mower.” 

“Mis’ Delia, ain’t I tellin’ you as fast as I can? Ouah lawn- 
mower, it went thissa way . . . onk-onk-onk, a lot of noise and 
no use . . . like them Yankee niggers I encountered in In¬ 
dianapolis.” 

Delia drew a long breath. 

“Yessum. So I took it down to that Mr. Hawkins, you know, 
down theah by Shak Rag. The one that belongs to my lodge. 
And he said, 'Tessum, I’ll make this lawn-mower sharp enough 
to use for a razor if you should need one sudden.’ Yas-m.” 

“Well?” 

“I says, 'Mr. Hawkins, you is right. That’s just what we want/ 
And I made ready for to wait for that lawn-mower, patient-like. 
And then you comes out and you says, 'Tessum, they ain’t nobody 
going to use the car to-day. And you can cut the grass over 
theah by those beech trees where it’s gone to seed. It’s shameful 
the way it looks. I don’t know what people will say about us/ 
Yassum, them was your very words. And you was looking like 
a thundercloud with your headache all tied up with a handker¬ 
chief. I couldn’t, under them circumstances, say, 'Mis’ Delia, I 
can’t mow that lawn to-day, ’cause our mower is down at Mr, 



256 


TALK 


Hawkins’ down near Shak Rag, and he’s going to make it as 
sharp as a razor when he get th’u.’ Now could I, I axes you.” 

“When was he to have it done?” Tessum always wore out her 
fury. 

“That’s the point, Mis’ Delia. He’d ’a’ had it done. But I 
ain’t tellin’ you no such thing when you got a headache. This 
boy ain’t ready to meet his Lord in Heaven, nohow. I just hot¬ 
foot it over to Mrs. Fletcher and hot-foot it back heah, before 
you know’d I was gone.” 

“And I suppose you didn’t consider what Mrs. Fletcher might 
think. That we couldn’t afford our own lawn-mower!” 

“Mis’ Delia, you didn’t use to be thissa way. When we had 
ouah little store, you did your work and lemme do mine. Why 
don’t you go to them bridge parties with the othah ladies? Mrs. 
Merriam she’s having one this afternoon. Mis’ Delia, ain’t you 
kinda losin’ your grip?” 

“Tessum! You’re the most impudent nigger I ever saw! I’m 
afraid we’re going to have to part.” 

“Mis’ Delia, is you leavin’ this place?” 

Delia laughed weakly. Tessum could always make her laugh. 
She wondered why she stood so much from him. She didn’t know 
that it was because he was the one dim reminder of her success. 
Sometimes she thought of it with a vague blurred wonder that 
it had been. 

“Tessum, you can write to your wife and get her here. Are 
you sure she’s a good cook?” 




TALK 


257 


* 

Page began to get young again. He bought a fawn-colored over¬ 
coat, belted, and a light green beaver hat. He took dancing 
lessons to “learn the new dances .’ 7 As president of the Country 
Club, he felt he had to. He spent most of his time out there, and 
Janice called him the “Country Club snake,” because he was 
such a fascinator. 

“Don’t let your mother hear you,” he cautioned. 

His attitude toward Delia had become the small boy trying to 
escape a strict disciplinarian. Delia, tacitly accepting this, 
claimed that wives had to protect their husbands, which gave 
Page liberation from responsibility. Delia was running his con¬ 
duct, and whatever he could do without her discovering it, he did, 
especially since he had custom on his side. Everybody was 
doing as much as he or she could, in the way of wild gaiety. 

Janice’s friends were too old for him. He danced with the 
youngest flappers at the club. 

When Tisdale had a golf tournament with Merville, he 
grumbled over having to waste his time with a lot of paleozoics. 
But he gave a luncheon at the Country Club for them, and over 
Delia’s reproaches he had Tessum and the newly arrived Mary 
Louella, Tessum’s wife, speed on the function. Delia said if 
they left, it was his fault. 

And then after the game he brought ten people home for 
cocktails. 

Delia wasn’t dressed. She scrambled into her “black velvet,” 
and got downstairs to hear Page saying, “Wait, I’ll call Tessum 



258 


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to get some of that Bacardi out of the cellar. A touch of it 
gives. . . .” 

“Page, don’t you want to get it yourself,” she suggested, 
sweetly. “You know they’ve been working like slaves all day 
and they’ve got to get supper. After all, they’re not machines. 
They’ve got to be considered. . . .” 

“But, my dear, the light is bad in the wine cellar,” he said, 
sweeter still. “You’d better let Tessum get it.” 

“Now, Page, it isn’t any more trouble for you than those 
setting-up exercises you take. Just as good for the figure.” 

Page, seeing how uncomfortable their guests were, departed 
for the rum. Delia turned to Phillipa Merriam. 

“Honestly, this house is going to be the death of me. With 
servants the way they are now, you just have to watch them 
every minute. When night comes I’m just ready for nothing 
but bed. But Page is always wanting to go out, but with my 
health the way it is . . . honestly, sometimes. . . .” 

Phillipa escaped. 

And Janice came in as Delia was saying to the young daughter 
of the Tisdale golf champion, who had in her presence called 
Page the Merville Valentino, “Yes, I have a very good-looking 
husband, since Doctor Phillips, our dentist you know, has fin¬ 
ished his work. He did a very good job.” 

Later Janice told her: “That was mean. You take the very 
tail feathers out of a man. Have you ever seen a cock in the 
chicken yard after his tail feathers have been plucked!” 

“I won’t have you talking to me like that!” 

Delia went up to her room to throw herself on the bed and 
worry for fear people had noticed. Would they think she should 
have sent Tessum. ... But she couldn’t help bickering at Page 



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259 


before people, and they, finding the atmosphere unpleasant, 
blamed her, and didn’t blame him when he went out without her. 

Nor did she give him peace at home. The floors were waxed 
weekly, and whatever room he might want to go to was always the 
room that mustn’t be stepped on just then. When he smoked, 
Delia watched for fear he might drop ashes where he shouldn’t. 
She didn’t give him enough clean towels, and Page, dreading a 
scene, made no complaint. 

They had such meager cold Sunday-night suppers when the 
servants were “off” that Page went to the Club. But Delia 
didn’t want to cook, Janice wouldn’t because Delia nagged her 
while she was doing it, and Delia wanted a chance to look 
in every drawer and into the icebox, to find out what “they 
were doing.” 

They knew what to expect on Monday mornings. 

But she found a new problem in Mary Louella. 

When she said, “Why haven’t you wiped these handmarks off 
the kitchen door? It’s just triflingness. . . .” 

“Yas’m. It’s wussen dat. I done forgits it. Mis’ Delia, ain’t 
I just awful,” she giggled. 

Whenever Delia reproved Mary Louella, she got no satisfaction. 
So she took it out on Page. 

4 

Les Henderson, Rhoda, and the two children came on their 
annual visit to Merville. 

Mrs. Birdwood gave a luncheon for Rhoda, and when she men¬ 
tioned her work, Faltha Reeves whispered, “My! Mollie, I 
thought Leslie was doing so well!” 




26 o _TALK' 

Next to her, Mrs. Mollie squirmed in Mrs. Birdwood’s Shera¬ 
ton chair. “He is. Rhoda just goes to this laboratory where 
they do something about food. So domestic. She only goes there 
in the mornings. And of course her interest in chemistry is 
purely cultural,” Mrs. Mollie added, rose-coloring as of old. 

But Rhoda’s clear voice rang out: “They pay very well for 
part-time work, and it’s just what I want. Les says I’m the sort 
of compromise that irritates the own-name femininists and puzzles 
the old guard. But Les likes to make a phrase, you know.” 

The salad was served. 

“Isn’t it a strange coincidence,” cooed Mrs. Mollie, “Mrs. John 
Henry Fisher. ... You know the Louisville Fishers. He was 
a colonel in the war and she was one of the Lexington Ruperts. 
He’s president of a bank in New York now. . . . Well, she 
studies at the same place Rhoda does!” 

“Isn’t it wonderful,” said Faltha Reeves, “how women of 
wealth and position are spending their time worthily these days. 
They deserve so much credit.” 

After the luncheon she drove her little electric to Delia’s. 
She drove it expertly through a maze of cars which were being 
miraculously preserved without any traffic laws. 

Delia, because of an “intestinal disturbance,” had sent her 
regrets to the party. As her illness became her unique creation, 
her avocation, she learned its technical terms. 

Faltha found her in bed with a hot-water bottle at her feet 
and an electric pad at her head, with the shades down in the 
bedroom, which smelled of peppermint and camphor. 

“How are you feeling, Delia?” 

Delia became animated. “Well, right after breakfast this 
morning when ...” 




TALK 


261 


“You need a good dose of castor oil, I reckon, Delia,” said 
Faltha coldly. “Now I want to talk to you seriously. It is very 
unwise for a wife not to go out with her husband.” 

“But I’ve been sick!” 

“And I wonder if you know that Janice has kind of dropped 
out of things lately. She wasn’t at the Merriams’ dance. Now, 
why don’t you give her a dance at the Country Club? And go 
yourself! Wives should be with their husbands. Mothers should 
be with their children. And as president, Page ought to entertain 
more. I heard about a new kind of ice-cream. . . . And, Delia, 
do you know they are making mushroom sandwiches now? 
Delicious!” 

Delia was always eager to be virtuous, especially if there were 
a chance of being a martyr as well. 

“I suppose a mother ought to sacrifice herself . . .” she began. 
“Would you make it a sort of original party?” 

“People don’t want originality nowadays. They want gin. 
And, Delia, why don’t you have it in honor of Rhoda Henderson, 
too?” 

“That dog fennel!” 

“Dog fennel is being used nowadays. Roses and ferns are out 
of style. Really, I saw that in Mode ” laughed Faltha Reeves. 
“I don’t suppose you know that Rhoda is very intimate with Mrs. 
John Henry Fisher in New York. They work in the same food 
laboratory.” 

“What food laboratory?” 

“Berg ... or Berger. Why?” 

“O-oh! That’s where they make that acidine milk. You take 
it with milksugar. Doctor Houghton said . . . Oh, I must talk 
to her about it.” 



262 


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When Delia told Janice about the party, Janice said she didn’t 
want one. She’d been going to parties since she was twelve and 
she had had her “damn satisfied.” 

“You’ll enjoy it when you get there, Janice. Of course I won’t. 
But I’m going, if I have to go to bed for a week afterward. 
I am going to live on in your life now . . . that’s the way things 
go.” 

“Line’s busy, old dear. You can’t vamp my life. It isn’t 
done any more. You’ve got to live on in yourself.” 

“You’re as hard as nails, Janice. You haven’t any feeling 
for anybody.” 

“I’ve jolly well tried not to have! Mother, I wasn’t going to 
tell you for a while . . . but . . . well, you can make this a 
farewell party. I’m taking a fellowship at Johns Hopkins. 
Higher mathematics.” 

“You’re joking. When did you get such an idea?” wailed 
Delia. 

“I decided the day Jase had the Tisdale golfers here for 
cocktails.” 

“No man would look at a girl who was studying higher 
mathematics!” 

Janice smiled. 

“Janice, the old-fashioned woman was happiest, content with 
her home and her children and society. My mother was happy. 
Happier than I was, because I had had that store and knew 
something different for a while. It would have been better for 
me if I hadn’t. And all these women nowadays . . . doing this 
or that. It would have been better for them if they had never 
gone to college to get ideas . . .” 

“Quite right. I agree with you, mother. Women can’t train 






TALK 


263 


their brains and then be content not to use them. If society is 
to remain as it was, women in the home . . . better not educate 
them. Maybe they’d be happier. Who can say? Perhaps men 
were happier when they were apes. But what’s done is done. 
And so I’m going on with it. Oh, it’s such fun to get hold 
of something clean and thrilling . . . and work at it and come 
through with it!” 

“Your father ’ll stop this, Janice. He won’t give you a cent.” 

“East Lynne, mother. I’ve got a certificate to teach math, 
you know. I can get along nicely.” 

“You haven’t any ideals.” 

“The Lord forbid that I should have! We wouldn’t have any 
wars or cruelties of any kind if you couldn’t say ’em with such 
beautiful words.” 

“But, Janice”—Delia began to cry quietly—“will you fill that 
hot-water bottle for me? There. You see how I need you. I’m 
not at all well. And this house is such a care. Mary Louella is 
just awful. I don’t know whether I’m going to be able to 
put up with her. I didn’t sleep the other night, worrying. . . .” 

Janice tucked her in with her fresh hot-water bottle. Janice 
twisted her impish brows. For a minute her tiny slender figure 
slumped, her eyes narrowed somberly. But they opened, and 
her body quivered erect, as if under a lash. 

“Why don’t you give up the house?” she asked, quietly. 
“Why don’t you travel?” 

“Your father loves this house. He’d be unhappy away from 
home. With his interests ... he needs to be here. I don’t 
want to travel. Why should we? With my health. I’m not well 
enough. From the very beginning, Janice, I have sacrificed every¬ 
thing for your father.” 



264 


TALK 


“I think Jase might have a pretty good time in Paris.” 

“Janice! You can’t be serious a minute. Such a frivolous atti¬ 
tude toward the serious things in life. I can’t talk to you like 
other mothers talk to their daughters. But at any rate you are not 
going through with this crazy notion. It would be different if you 
were leaving me to get married. But to leave me alone with all 
this responsibility . . . because you want to study higher mathe¬ 
matics ! It’s ridiculous! ” 

“Sorry, mother. It’s settled.” 

“O-oh! What will people say . . . your leaving your home 
like this ... for nothing . . .” 

Janice made no answer. Her throat was full of tears. Angry 
at Delia, sorry for her, scornful of her, she still understood her. 
And little body taut with decision, she swore that, being Delia’s 
child, should life send her three husbands and nine children and 
eleven millions, she would never desert quartemions. Her lips 
curved. “I will never desert Mr. Micawber,” she remembered. 

Janice couldn’t dramatize herself for long. 

4 ? 

What Delia called “this crazy idea of Janice’s” puzzled Page. 
That any one who didn’t have to work would want to; that such a 
choice should involve anything so impersonal, so abstract, so 
remote from financial gain or limelight as mathematics, simply^ 
bewildered him. 

Faltha Reeves told him he ought not to allow it. He suggested 
that she might try her hand at “not allowing Janice.” 





TALK 


265 


“My! The way Delia has spoiled her!” evaded Mrs. Reeves, 
not forgetful of the one time she had tried her hand. 

When Janice began rouging, Mrs. Reeves had pronounced it 
“dis-grace-ful.” 

“Why? I do it very well. It isn’t conspicuous and it’s be¬ 
coming. I think everybody might look as attractive as possible. 

You always have, Drist.” _ # „ 

“It’s one thing to dress well and quite another to be artificial.” 

“You know, Drist, I can remember the way you used to look 
when figures were just like hour-glasses. Urn! so busty. . . . 
Now you’re as flat as I am.” 

“Janice, you are as impudent as you can be!” 

And when Page remonstrated feebly to Janice, she said: Now, 
Jase, be honest. I cramp your style and you know it. You, with 
a grown daughter, at dances!” 

Page laughed, “You little devil.” 

“Lank Fisher says I’m an angel and such a good influence in 
his life. Can you imagine me being a good influence? ’ 

“I can not.” 

On his way down the street Page realized how cleverly she had 
eluded him, and promptly forgot her when he saw the smallest 
Merriam girl, a pink-cheeked, golden-haired flapper. She was 
bound for town, also. If she hadn’t been, he would have turned, 
but he had to be careful not to be seen chasing her. 

Suddenly he realized that he had a perfectly good reason for 
chasing her—to deliver an invitation for Jan’s party on January 
icth! His long legs snipped along like a tailor’s scissors. 




266 


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4 

Delia decided that the Country Club was a wonderful institu¬ 
tion. She knew that a lot of young people would have ruined her 
house. And now all she had to do was to send a menu to Jake Jen¬ 
kins, and have Tessum and Mary Louella out there to help serve. 

Getting the liquor was Page’s job. 

“Say, have you heard about Major Humphrey asking the moon¬ 
shiner if he’d ever tried aging his whisky? The moonshiner said 
he’d kept some three weeks once, and it didn’t seem to help it 
none!” 

Janice laughed. She always laughed at Page’s jokes. Delia 
never did. 

Page was in excellent humor over the prospect of being host 
to many flappers at a “wild party.” 

Janice was glad to have the scenes past. She had reservations 
on the early morning train for January nth. 

And then, the day before the dance, a huge box of books came, 
books that Delia had ordered from a Louisville store, the ones 
they had mentioned at the Civic Club and others she had seen 
advertised. 

Delia started with a novel by Mr. Lawrence. She read the 
first page and the second. She read the first page over again. 
She realized that the stone walk ought to be brushed with a 
wire brush. She went downstairs and told Tessum to do it. 

Back in her room, she went at those two pages again. Two 
sisters were talking, a sort of language that she had never heard. 
But it wasn’t “racy” as Daudet’s Sappho was. . . . Poor old 
Mrs. Fletcher, dead five years now . . . how she had loved 





TALK 


267 


“racy” books. . . . But this new book was dull. Delia couldn’t 
keep her mind on it. 

But she had ordered some “serious reading.” Modern novels 
were “crazy,” anyway. When Delia didn’t understand some¬ 
thing, she called it “crazy.” 

Now May Sinclair’s The New Idealism had sounded sweet. % 
The modern way, Jan’s way, of scorning idealism, was not Delia’s 
way. She had been true to her ideals, sacrificing her life for her 
husband and her child. Wasn’t that every woman’s finest ideal? 
She had saved her home when it was threatened; she had . . . 

She read the first page of The New Idealism. 

She watched Tessum with that wire brush. Why should he 
stop to rest every two seconds? People didn’t know how to work 
nowadays. When she was doing her own work . . . 

Back to The New Idealism. What was The New Realism? 
Who was Berkeley? Kant? Hegel? If they were people, why 
and what could New-Kantians, and New Hegelians be? 

Anyway, she had that little shooting pain between her shoulder 
blades She couldn’t understand a word of this stuff. Another 
language. It was “crazy.” The modem world was crazy, any¬ 
way. A lot of people said so. 

Now Eminent Victorians would be different. It wasnt new, 
but she had wanted to read it because Florence Nightingale had 
been her heroine when she was a girl. There was a woman who 

had sacrificed her life, too. 

This would be language she could understand. 

It was. It was smooth, flowing English, easy to read, but, we , 
that man ought to be hung for saying such things about Florence 
Nightingale! It was shameful. They had no respect for any- 
body nowadays. . . . 




268 


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She was through. 

She piled the books in her arms and took them to the library. 
They might look nice on the shelves; but for reading, she would 
stick to the old friends. 

Now there was Browning. She had read him as a girl, when 
it was considered quite a feat. What an energetic girl she had 
been! 

She pulled out the big red volume, and with it a whiff of dust. 

“Gladiola! Come here.” 

Gladiola came. 

“Didn’t I give you the whole day yesterday to dust these books 
in? Look at this one. Look at it! You can see for yourself. 
Now, Gladiola, it doesn’t take any brains to dust. It’s just 
going from one thing to another. Honestly, I can’t stand this! 
Look at this book!” shrilled Delia. 

“I sho can’t please you, nohow, Mis’ Delia. I don’t think the 
Lawd Almighty could keep his heaven to suit you, no ma’am. 
And I ain’t setting up to be any Lord. So I’m going . . .” 

“Now, Gladiola . . ” 

“No’m. Yestiddy it was them banister uprights. They wasn’t 
dusted to suit you ... I done forgot what it was the day befo\ 
But I remembers enough so’s I can’t be persuaded nohow. . . .” 

“I wouldn’t dream of persuading you,” said Delia, with dignity. 
“Oh, what a headache I’ve got now! It’s just nearly killing me!” 

She took Browning to her room. 

She would have to make another trip to Shak Rag to look 
for a house girl. Help was so hard to find, and each was worse 
than the last. 

She swallowed a headache powder. She had no idea that it was 



TALK 


269 


white flour and salt. She decided to read and forget her 
troubles if she could. 

“Andrea Del Sarto ” had been her favorite. 

“Autumn grows, autumn in everything, 

Eh? The whole world seems to fall into a shape 
As if all that I was born to be and do 
A twilight piece. . . .” 

How beautiful, how true! A twilight piece. Didn’t that mean 
that after life’s struggle you rested peacefully in the twilight? 
You rested after the day’s clamor . . . softly ... in the dim 
and lovely light . . . waiting . . . tranquilly ... for night to 
come. 

Yes, that was marriage, too, she thought. Husband and wife 
. . . sitting together before the smoldering embers of a fire . . . 
waiting for it to go out, slowly. . . . From their windows watch¬ 
ing younger life pass by. . . . 

She and Page would watch Janice’s life from afar. That was 
the way of life. You lived and struggled, and then after the 
middle years you rested and looked on. 

She finished the poem. 

“Again the cousin’s whistle! Go, my love.” 

She had forgotten what a silly end that poem had. Disagreeable, 
it “left a bad taste in your mouth.” Anyway, it wasn’t real, it 
was just poetry, and poetry was a waste of time. 

She saw Page coming through the avenue of maple trees, up the 
walk to the steps. 

Lifting the window, she called out, “Page, wait a minute. 
You’ll track white stone dust on the rugs. I had Tessum brush 

the walk.Wait. Let him bring you a mat. And wipe 

your feet good before you come in.” 




2JO 


TALK 


“Damn!” said Page. 

Brr-r-rrr, how cold that air was. She shouldn’t have opened 
that window without putting something over her head. Enough 
to give you the flu. . . . Well, suppose she got it . . . Page 
would feel sorry . . . Janice would wish she hadn’t. ... If 
she were as sick as that Page would have to pay more 
attention. . . . 

All that reading must have made her morbid! Was she actually 
wishing to be sick? Horrified, she knocked on wood. 

A cold dead moon shone whitely on the deserted golf links. It 
webbed the river with a silver shroud and glimmered palely on 
the bared tree branches, so that they looked like naked arms 
waving, impotent in the wind. And the wind blew chill and sweet, 
it smelled like frozen candy. It flung against the windows of 
the club house, making the iron fixtures groan rhythmically, 
ge-dum-trnk, ge-dum-trnk, cut-tunk. 

But nobody heard it above the dance music. 

On the rustic rafters, inside, the lights were covered with red 
Japanese lanterns. Swaying, they shadowed strange shapes, 
lengthening, receding, blue, black, up and down the log walls. 
In the great stone hearth a drift of scarlet ashes sloped hotly 
beneath the wood fire which popped and seethed and leaped to 
blaze green, blue, orange, and sank to sputter latently and smoke, 
and then to leap again. 

Everybody crowded around the punch bowl. 



TALK 


271 


“Page,” said Bob Fletcher, “this mule of yours could kick us 
clean to Nashville!” 

Page grinned. “Have you noticed that little Merriam girl,” he 
said, eagerly. “She’s a good number, I’ll say!” 

He was off after her. 

And to Bob, Les Henderson murmured: “If I ever get to be 
a sniffer, shoot me at sight. Sniffing at this girl, then that one. 
God! It’s awful! Why doesn’t he go off on a good hearty week 
end?” 

“Why? Delia’s got him on a leash. Lord! the way that 
woman . . . You’d think she’d look in the mirror and then go 
for the river.” 

“Delia wouldn’t commit suicide, it wouldn’t be good for her 
health,” said Les. 

Delia sat next to Charlie May and Mrs. Reeves, who, at sight 
of her, had turned away significantly. 

Delia’s evening dress was pink, because pink evening dresses 
used to be “the thing.” You couldn’t go wrong on pink, she 
had decided, but she did. It made her face look more sallow, 
her eyes more colorless, and her hair more wispy. It was cruel 
to her figure. 

“Who is that girl in purple? She’s got on tulle bloomers!” 
said Charlie May. 

“Where? Oh, she’s the Aikens’ visitor. Listen. How do 
you reckon that dress stays up on her shoulders? Adhesive. 
I wouldn’t be a bit surprised. Delia, Charlie May thinks that 
purple dress is held up by adhesive. Will you look at Phillipa 
Merriam. My! She ought to wear sleeves, with all that muscle. 
Her arms look like Firpo’s.” 

Mrs. Reeves knew her own bronze velvet was charming. And 



272 


TALK 


she was having such a good time, as occupied as a child at a 
three-ringed circus. 

But Delia’s face, her neck, her body, seemed to be one miserable 
flush. For she watched Page dance with the little Merriam girl. 

His tall figure, still slender, wrapped around, almost inter¬ 
mingled with that tiny body in scarlet chiffon. His russet-brown 
cheek against her rosy one touched it caressingly. Her golden 
curls pressed tight on his well-tailored shoulder. 

Closer and closer they danced. 

The music filled with weird discords and piercing harmonies. 

One of the Gale boys took the drum and beat it: 

Booom . . . tomm-tommm-tomm . . . boom-tom-tom . . . 
tomm-tomm . . . 

Some youngsters began to sing: 

“Yes ... we have no . . . bananas . . . to-day.” 

Page and that soft, small girl in scarlet chiffon danced in a 
corner. They scarcely moved from one spot. They moved 
closer and closer to each other . . . closer . . . closer. Delia 
thought she was going to scream. That room . . . the red 
lanterns ... all these queer shadows ... the restless, leaping 
fire . . . that “crazy song” . . . and the drum . . . tomm- 
booom. . . . 

Delia seemed to be watching a merry-go-round. She wasn’t 
in it. But she could see it, feel it, go round and round . . . 
round and round . . . round and round . . . 

It was like a dream . . . unreal . . . something you imagine. 

“It’s just awful the way they dance now,” said Mrs. Reeves, 
enjoying it. 

Delia looked at the others. 

Charlie May had left her to dance with Lee Utley. She was 



TALK 


273 


looking into his eyes. His hand, too, was on her bare back. They 
were carrying on a flirtation. 

Delia’s eyes searched for Bob Fletcher. He and Phillipa 
Merriam were smoking the same cigarette, taking turns, over 
by the punch table. 

“It’s disgusting,” said Delia. 

“It certainly is,” Mrs. Reeves agreed, cheerfully. “Isn’t 
Phillipa silly to drink too much. Her hair gets all stringy and she 
looks so inane. My! Women can’t carry their liquor like men 
can. It’s certainly unbecoming. I’ll wager that if this room 
had mirrors around the walls, and the women could see them¬ 
selves, their vanity ’d keep them from drinking very deeply!” 

Charline Fletcher passed and paused. “Doesn’t Janice look 
beautiful to-night, Mis’ Delia? And she’s on high!” 

Jan at parties was either “high” or “low.” When she was “low,” 
she talked to nobody and went home early and everybody exerted 
himself in vain to interest her, and cursed himself afterward. 
To-night she was “high.” Lank Fisher and Greggy Fletcher and 
a man from Tisdale were all rushing her, excitedly. 

Her eyes were like polished blue stars, far apart, radiant, 
lighted from inside. Her pert, gaminish face twinkled with wild 
gaiety, her bobbed silvery-blond hair was like a clipped dawn 
cloud. She danced like a languorous bird, on wings. She wore 
orange chiffon embroidered in silver suns and emerald streaks, 
jagged, like lightning. It was made primly, with a tight little 
bodice, puffed wee sleeves, and a full long skirt. But under it 
she wore no petticoat. The effect was very piquant, enhanced 
by long, tight, flesh-colored bloomers. 

The dress had arrived as Delia was leaving, Janice being always 
late at everything, and Delia the first to arrive. 



274 


TALK 


Now Delia made violent signs to her. 

‘Come here, Janice. It’s terrible. You’ve got to go straight 
home and put on a petticoat. I don’t know what people are 
thinking!” 

“That I have nice legs, haven’t I, said she, modestly. I’m 
sorry, old dear, but I couldn’t if I would. Every scrap I have 
as at the station. I’m all packed but my fur coat.” 

Charlie May came up just then and laughed. 

“Let her alone, Delia. Men are so used to seeing legs nowadays 
that they don’t pay any attention to them.” 

Charlie May was trying to hide the fact that she was puffing. 
She was tired, also, of having to entertain Lee Utley. Flirting 
was a strain, but all her friends did it and she feit that she 
had to. 

Lee Utley joined the cluster of men who were one by one 
breaking in on Rhoda Bassett Henderson. Everybody agreed 
that she looked “lovely and not a bit like she had two children.” 
Her blue-black velvet “just sang Paris.” 

Les Henderson’s eyes followed her around the room, when he 
wasn’t dancing with Janice. 

In front of everybody at the punch table Janice said to him, 
“Les Henderson, why didn’t you wait for me! I believe you’re 
one man I could love.” 

“I’m darned glad I didn’t, Jan. You’d wear me out in a week. 
I’m a hard-working man. I need to be soothed in my home.” 

The punch bowl was emptied and filled again and again. 
And the more they drank the closer they danced. 

How tired Delia was! She dug her finger nails into her palms 
to keep from getting drowsy, or she looked at Page. That 
wakened her. 



TALK 


275 


As soon as a man “broke in” on Page, taking his partner, he 
found another. Little furtive fires gleamed in his eyes. They 
moved over the girls with such desperate energy. Every inch of 
his body seemed to be eager. 

“It’s indecent to watch anybody having such a good time,” 
Les Henderson told Bob. 

It sickened Delia to watch him; it shamed her. What did 
those young girls think of him? She saw the little Merriam girl 
shrug her shoulders and wink at Greg Fletcher when Page broke 
in on her for the tenth time. 

“Twilight Piece” indeed . . . sitting peaceably hand in hand. 

. . . What a silly poem that was, especially the last of it about 
the cousin’s whistle! One “cousin” wouldn’t be enough for Page 
at this rate. He was making himself ridiculous, a spectacle for 
everybody to see! 

But Mrs. Reeves said, “Page dances well, doesn’t he? It’s a 
pity you can’t learn.” 

She was at home, as was Charlie May, in this atmosphere that 
seemed horrible to Delia. 

Round and round and round . . . only they seemed to be 
standing still . . . closer, closer . . . disgusting . . . those red 
lanterns, swaying . . . what queer shadows on the walls . . . and 
that hot, restless fire . . . the smell of burnt wood and mixed 
exotic perfumes . . . gardenia strongest . . . sickening sweet. 

Delia wished she could get away. ... She would never come 
to this place again. But where . . . where did she belong? 

Phillipa Merriam was going home. She was like a knotty 
winter apple . . . golf mad. ... No, Delia didn’t belong in 
her world. 

Of course there were still people of dignity in Merville—Mrs. 



276 


TALK 


Birdwood, Mrs. Gale—but they were bookish. Mrs. Gale thought 
D. H. Lawrence the greatest poet. Delia thought he was a bore! 

And Charlie May, with her clubs and her flirtations. . . . 

Delia had her home. But she couldn’t keep it together like 
other people could. Charlie May had had the same house girl 
for five years. And now Delia would have to look for one to 
take Gladiola’s place. 

Where did she belong? Where? Where? 

Nowhere, with no one. 

She felt a kind of terror ... a fear ... of being alone. If 
she had somebody to go to, if she could creep into a broad lap 
and cry and cry. ... For the first time in years she thought 
of her mother . . . would she have understood? Could anybody 
understand? But, oh, the terror of being alone. . . . 

Boomm . . . tomm-tommm-tomm . . . boom-tom-tom , . . 
tomm-tomm. . . . 

There was that crazy song again. 

“Yes ... we have no . . . bananas . . . to-day.” 

She was so tired. How nice it would be to be very sick—sick 
enough for everybody to be worried ... a day nurse and a night 
nurse ... a dimly lighted sick room . . . soft bed . . . pillows. 
... It would be nice to be sick. . . . 

Why was everybody crowding in that corner? 

Janice was in the center. 

Janice said: “Come on, everybody. Les Henderson, you hold 
my pulse. One at a time, gentlemen, one at a time. Now, 
Les, as each one imprints a kiss on my ruby lips . . . Wait! Let 
me rub off the ruby. . . . There! Now, Les, you see if the little 
old pulse leaps. One leap and the lucky man gets this bottle of 
Bourbon. Pre-war. Come one, come all!” 




TALK 


2 77 


Delia got up from her seat and, sliding on the slick floor, 
hurried to Janice. 

“Janice! you little fool! I won’t allow this! Are you crazy?” 

Janice shook her head solemnly. 

“Sorry. Older generation spoiling the fun.” 

Page took the center of the group. How he loved to be the 
center. He had had his share of Bourbon. He could carry it; 
but it stripped his inhibitions. 

“Les,” said he, “we won’t let it spoil the fun. You hold my 
pulse. We’ll give this bottle of pre-war Bourbon to any one of 
these little girls who can give me a kiss that won’t make my little 
old pulse leap. Delia, don’t you compete!” 

Delia turned. “I’m going home,” she said, furiously. “Will 
you take me home, Bob?” 

“Delia! ” Mrs. Reeves caught hold of her arm. “Don’t be such 
a fool. It will get all over town if you act like this. Be a good 
sport. Everybody’s had a little too much. Nobody’s going to 
take any of this seriously unless you do.” 

“She’s right,” said Charlie May, coolly. 

Actually, Mrs. Reeves and Charlie May seemed to put her in 
the wrong, and there was Page, the center of that shrieking 
group. ... 

“I don’t suppose anybody would mind if I went in the dressing 
room to lie down,” said Delia, icily. 

“I’ll call you,” said Mrs. Reeves, “in time for Janice’s train.” 

There was an oil stove in the dressing room. Delia lit it, and it 
smoked and smelled. 

She stretched out on the couch. She jumped up again, for her 
fur coat to put over her knees. 



278 


TALK 


With the door closed she could scarcely hear the music. But 
she heard the window fixtures . . . ge-dum-trnk, ge-dum-trnk, 
cut-tunk. How lonesome they sounded . . . 

She was so tired, perhaps she could sleep. A strip of moon¬ 
light came beneath the shade. She reached to pull the shade 
down further, and it came down altogether. 

How white and cold the moonlight was! And those tree 
branches, so bare, they looked like naked arms. . . . The wind 
waved them. Beyond she could see the river, stretched out, 
covered with moonlight. . . . How dead everything looked! 


The crowd raced to the station for Jan’s three-o’clock train. 

The moon had gone down, but it was quite dark. 

A mother with three sticky children, two men spitting tobacco 
regularly at the enormous stove in the waiting room, stared 
sleepily at the gay, laughing crowd. A brakeman swinging a 
lantern up and down the track looked at them and grinned. 

“Hi, Captain!” Page greeted him, not that he knew him, but 
because he felt good. 

With a deafening roar, the train rushed in . . . snorted 
groaned . . . sighed. 

Everybody pushed Janice on, Lank Fisher just in back of her. 

“Janice . . . you didn’t kiss me good-by,” called Delia. 

Janice, her dress a vivid strip beneath her black fur coat, 
started down the steps again. . . 

“All . . . aboard! . . . All . . . aboard. . . . You’d better 
stay on if you’re going, young lady!” 




TALK 


279 


“Lank! Lank! You’ll get left!” 

Janice started to throw a kiss to Delia, and then she began 
to laugh at Lank’s efforts to get out, with the doors automatically 
shut. He was trapped. 

“Send a car to Franklin for me!” he shouted. “I’ll get off 
there!” 

“O-ohl” said Delia. 

“Say, ain’t they using rice these days?” the brakeman grinned. 

“Listen!” shouted Greggy Fletcher. “He thinks it’s a wedding. 
Fine joke on Janice!” 

“I’ll tell you. We’ll have a wedding breakfast, anyway,” said 
Page. “Who wants ham ’n’ eggs? Who wants ham ’n’ eggs? 
All aboard for the Greek’s!” 

“Page!” said Delia. “Aren’t you coming home?” 

Page didn’t answer. He hurried off to jump in Billy Fletchers 
car. He knew he was going to “get the devil,” anyway, for 
this evening’s performances, and he decided to make it as large 
an evening as possible. He was like a small boy certain of a 
whipping for running off, who might as well steal apples while 
he was about it. He was no longer responsible. Delia was 
holding the leash. If he got away, it was her fault, not his. 

Mrs. Reeves had told Janice a calm good-by at the Country 
Club, so, alone, Delia got in the car, and Tessum drove her 
home. 

Janice hadn’t even told her good-by. That was an accident 
... but still . . . Janice had gone away . . . had left her 
. . . laughing. 

Delia opened the front door and went into the great entrance 
hall. How big the house was, and she was alone in it. 

Leaning on the banisters, she climbed the stairs. Janice, her 



TALK 


280 


baby, was gone . . . and gone with scarcely a word. As if she 
didn’t care. 

Delia began to undress. She caught a glimpse of herself in the 
mirror. How terrible she looked! She was old. And she wasn’t 
forty-five. She faced herself in the mirror. Wrinkles, a ray of 
them around her eyes, and her chin sagged. The young line of her 
face was gone; it looked doughy, lumpy, ugly. . . . 

Tears welled into her eyes. She put her hands over them. 
Oh, there was no use to cry. . . . 

She turned away from the mirror. 

How tired she was! 

What a fool Page had made of himself. And now he was at 
the Greek’s, making himself conspicuous, no doubt. . . . 

What would people say? She would tell him what she 
thought! 

She put out the light and got into bed. 

It was dark . . . and still. She was all alone, quite alone. . . . 
Page was out, enjoying himself without her. Janice was gone. 
Nothing of her left. ... Her baby. ... It was as if she had 
never been. 

Why was it? Why had life treated her like this! Other 
people had happiness. She had nothing. Memories ... her 
store . . . people talking . . . those labor-saving devices . . . 
people talking . . . Page’s arms . . . Janice begging for new 
clothes . . . people talked about her old ones . . . that old 
picture she had of curving, flaying tongues, beating people down. 

They had beaten her. 

If Page would only come home now! If she only had Janice! 
She was so lonely. ... It was pitiful to be alone. ... 

She turned the light on. 



TALK 


281 


She went into Janice’s austere little room. She found a discarded 
kimono of Janice’s and took it back with her. The violet toilet 
water Janice used . . . how much it seemed of Janice. . . . She 
didn’t understand Janice, but if she were only there ... so her 
mother wouldn’t be all alone. 

What a sweet baby Janice had been! Memories. . . . 

“Bobby Safto’s don to sea, 

Sibber buckles on ids knee. 

Pease turn back to me, 

Pitty Bobby Safto.” 

Janice had learned to sing that during that first period when she 
thought Page and Eudora were. ... She had cried while she was 
rocking Janice, and Janice had gone on singing. . . . 

That was the way. . . . 

But, anyway, she wanted her baby! She buried her face in 
that old kimono . . . drinking in the violet smell ... the only 
thing she had of Janice now. . . . 

Her throat ached, ached, ached. . . . 

Well, this was foolish, at this time of night, getting her nowhere. 

If her throat ached, she’d better gargle. 

She went into the bathroom. 

Hadn’t she told Mary Louella to change those papers on the 
shelves in the medicine chest? What did Mary Louella think 
she was being paid extra to do the housework for, until a new 
house girl came! And Mary Louella would say, with that giggle 
of hers, “Yas’m, I just done forgits. Ain’t I awful, Mis’ Delia? 
I don’t see how you puts up with me, I sho don’t.” It was 
enough to drive you crazy! 

She had better gargle with Dobell’s solution. That was an¬ 
tiseptic. And a little soda water afterward. A good plan when 



282 


TALK 


you’re tired and had been exposed to the night air, to turn the 
blood alkali and resistant to colds. Doctor Houghton had said 
she was very intelligent about learning medical terms. Funny, 
that seemed to be one language she did understand. 

She would probably have a nervous attack after the strain of 
this evening. Every nerve in her body seemed to be jumping 
now. As soon as she got settled with a new house girl she would 
go up to Louisville and see Doctor Houghton again. 

4 

At eleven o’clock in the morning, as usual, the women gathered 
in the Bijou Sweet Shop. Mothers, daughters, even grandmothers 
gossiped there together. For women did not age in Merville, they 
grouped according to congeniality of tastes. They sat on stools 
attached to small glass-covered tables, which popped underneath 
when released. Knees had to be pressed against the table legs 
to keep the seats steady. Here sundaes and sodas and “cafee- 
cona” were imbibed, the last named designated as “dope with 
lemon,” or “dope with orange,” according to personal preference. 

The Reeves’ dance was their vital topic. 

“Did you see those tulle bloomers that visiting girl had on?” 

And, “Didn’t Janice look beautiful? Orange is her color. Do 
you think she cares anything about Lank Fisher?” 

“The funny part of it is, if she weren’t Janice he’d hate her. 
She isn t his type. But men always endow a girl they want with 
all the virtues they want her to have!” said Charlie May Fletcher, 
who was sadly drinking a lemon phosphate with a longing eye on 
slender Ethel Aiken’s maple-walnut-marshmallow-banana-split. 



TALK 


283 


“Lank’s safe,” Charline assured them. “Janice hasn’t any 
idea of marrying anybody. But she’s mighty certain not to 
marry Lank. She’s too certain of him.” 

Phillipa Merriam came in. 

“Dope with lemon. Double strength. I’ve got a n^atch on 
in fifteen minutes. Say, what did you all think of the way 
Page Reeves acted last night?” 

“Well, can you blame him? Look at Delia. When a woman 
lets herself go like that, she ought to know what to expect!” 
said Charlie May, heroically refusing some chocolates offered by 
little Paula Merriam from the next table. 

And in Mayfield’s drug store, Billy Fletcher played a never- 
ending game of checkers with the youngest Gale boy. Lank 
Fisher, Greggy Fletcher, and Henry Aiken watched it indiffer¬ 
ently. They agreed that it was wonderful how Janice could get a 
“real jag” without touching a drop. Lank Fisher swore that 
neither glass nor bottle had met her lips. Greggy said that that 
visiting girl from Tisdale was a “regular tank.” You had to 
give her a nip a dance. And he personally didn t consider her 
worth it, with the price of liquor so high. 

“But didn’t poor Paula Merriam have a hell of a time with 
that old simp Page Reeves sticking around her like a burr on a 
mule’s tail,” he added. 

“That’s my last king,” sighed the Gale boy. “Wait. I’m going 
to walk around the table. Helps sometimes. Say . . . old Page 
is a darned good sport. Going to lead me to his bootlegger. Let 
him have a little pleasure; he needs it. Look what he’s married 
to. Your move, Bill.” 

Over at the Town Bank the sitting room was dim with pipe 
smoke. It smelled of tobacco and new leather and a hearty 



284 


TALK 


log fire, and the brass polish newly applied to three shining 
spittoons. 

Major Humphrey was telling the latest monkey-gland story 
when Mr. Birdwood walked in. 

‘‘Take a chair, sir; take two chairs!” said Pilch Trenton. 

My grandfather got a licking for saying that to his grand- 
ather! ” said Squire Preston, quite round now as to form and beet 
red as to face. “We don’t allow it over at the Merville National. 
But I’m too comfortable to leave. Sort of expect old stuff over 
here. We’re more up-to-date! Say, Mr. Birdwood, I wish you’d 

tell us what you think of the situation in Europe.” 

Mr. Birdwood looked taller and sparer. His sandy hair was 
sparse and white and his amber eyes were sunken and tired, tawny 
streaks beneath his bushy overhanging brows. 

Gentlemen,” he said, “I have no more theories. They’ve all 
gone wrong. And there’s no use to say, ‘The times are out of 
joint.’ Somebody says that in every generation, and the world 
goes on just the same. Maybe the somebody who says it is out of 
joint and doesn’t understand and can’t adapt to change. I don’t 
know.” He smiled. “I think I don’t know anything. Mrs. 
Birdwood agrees with me.” 

I know one thing,” claimed Major Humphrey, patting his large 
nose, I don’t know what’s going to happen to this country, with 
the young people running wild the way they are! My daughter 
was telling me about the dance at the Country Club last night 
Shocking!” The major had settled down to a comfortable and 
virtuous old age. His beautiful Emmeline had gone over to The¬ 
osophy and New Thought. When she told him that their relation¬ 
ship had been only a beautiful idea, it had never existed, he had 
agreed that their farewell must be likewise. He swore to visit her 



TALK 


285 


astrally every week, which gave him leisure at his or the Town 
Bank’s restful fireside. ^ 

“1 hear one of your directors was a prime mover in last night’s 
conflagration,” said Pilch to the squire. 

“Oh, Page is just sowing his second crop of wild oats. Indian 
summer. The last blooming.” The squire sighed sentimentally. 
“Remember he had some mighty hard sledding before they struck 
oil on his place. Let him alone. And from what I hear, Delia’s 
pretty hard to live with. Keeps him pretty strict. She’s a 
tartar.” 

“You bet,” said Pilch. He opened the door and called out 
into the bank: “Just a minute, gentlemen, I’ll be right there . . . 
a couple of farmers about a mortgage. I’ll want your advice on 
this, Mr. Birdwood. Don’t go. Well, I started to tell you, we 
have Gladiola working for us now; she used to be Delia’s house 
girl. You ought to hear the tales she tells my wife. Delia 
won’t give any of her servants a minute’s peace. When she isn’t 
after Page, she’s after them. Seems to want to make their work 
hard. Won’t stand for any short cuts. Wouldn’t let ’em have 
what they call a vac’am cleaner, and my wife says she couldn’t 
keep house without hers!” 

Bob Fletcher, decorated with a shining green-and-gold badge 
from a press convention, came in while Pilch was talking. “Yeh. 
Ain’t that a funny thing? I can remember when she first married 
we kidded Page to death about all those no-count labor-saving 
devices she bought. They weren’t a bit of use in those days. 
I reckon she kinda lost faith in the idea.” 

“Poor Delia!” said Mr. Birdwood. “Come, Pilch. I’ve got to 
get back to my office.” 



286 


TALK 


“Poor Page! I’ll say,” said the squire, “I feel sorry for him, 
because I feel kinda responsible. I sorta brought them together, 
more or less, way back there when Delia started to run that little 
store. She did mighty well with it. It would have been better if 
she’d ’a’ stayed in it. Why, the ladies are in everything nowa¬ 
days, and managing their homes and their children just as well. 
It appears like that store was the only thing Delia Morehouse 
ever did know how to manage. She was a fool not to stick to it. 


THE END 




Harper Fiction 


JULIE CANE By Harvey O’Higgins 

The first novel of a distinguished short-story writer and psycholo¬ 
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A masterpiece of character-drawing and dramatic narrative, “Julie 
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Crushed between the millstones of two generations—deprived of 
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The Harper Prize Novel 

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HARPER ^BROTHERS 

T 89 






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PALLIETER By Felix Timmermans 

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T 90 






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WAGES By Mary Lanier Magruder 

Vivid romance and yet a stark reality of passion are merged in 
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of a great and generous nature under the influence of love. 

THE ABLE McLAUGHLINS By Margaret Wilson 

The Harper Prize Novel. , 

An extraordinary combination of best-seller, prize-winner, ana 
first novel that no reader of our native fiction should miss In 
this story of a group of Scotch pioneers in Iowa, Miss Wilson, 
like Willa Cather, like Herbert Quick and like Joseph Herges- 
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HARPER & BROTHERS 
T87 





Harper Fiction 


BUNK By W. E. Woodward 

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neither sordid nor sex-cursed, but dusted over with romance 
Some very fine and even delicately beautiful thoughts have been 
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A new personality, rememberable and charming, is brought to 
life in this first novel. It is the story of Molly, oldest of the 
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Against a richly colored background of New York and the far 
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MOLESKIN JOE By Patrick MacGill 

A thrilling story of the strange adventures and love of a young 
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